


Ten Years in One Night

by Kitkatkimble



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, M/M, Road Trips, Slow Build, adventure time!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2328557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitkatkimble/pseuds/Kitkatkimble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anduin was missing, presumed deceased. This presented a rare opportunity, one which Wrathion was loath to pass over, particularly given the sudden lack of any obligations whatsoever.</p><p>Or, Wrathion tried to convince Anduin to come on a road trip. To his surprise, Anduin said yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Opportunities

_“When I am a little older,” Wrathion announced, “I shall, if asked politely, take you on my back and ferry you to fascinating places where we will have adventures that will age your father ten years in one night.” – War Crimes, by Christie Golden_

* * *

The legions of Sageras had been battered back. The Light had spread like a shockwave over the forces of evil, beating their souls and destroying their very beings. For one breathless moment, all was well.

Prince Anduin Wrynn stood, hands still held high as the last remnants of Light escaped him. He looked glorious, triumphant. Then, just as he lowered them, there was an infernal roar and flames burst in front of him, shielding him from the view of the combined Alliance and Horde troops.

The last pit commander, Elgorthon, beat back the trolls and night elves surrounding him, and pointed a finger to where Anduin was standing, trapped. “Not so fast, light wielder!”

“Quick, finish him!” yelled Varian Wrynn, his voice audible over the clash of battle.

But they were not fast enough. A bolt of black magic shot from Elgorthon’s taloned finger, heading unerringly for Anduin. Even as the trolls’ blades pierced his heart, Anduin cried out, and toppled backwards off the cliff face.

Words could not describe the carnage that followed. Surpassing even the massacre at the Black Temple so many years ago, the Alliance fell upon the demonic forces with blinding rage. The Horde, ever open to continued battle, stepped in beside them, and the Burning Legion fell.

Varian Wrynn hastened to where Anduin had been, faster than the blink of an eye. No man should see his son die before him.

But Baine Bloodhoof was there already, his face miserable. “King Wrynn, it is too late. The Earthmother has taken him.”

“No!”

Varian staggered to the edge of the cliff, looking down into the abyss below. He had sent Anduin there earlier, thinking him safe; no one could climb up unless they emerged straight from the Twisting Nether. But Anduin could not survive a fall like that, not in the infinite blackness that was the Nether.

In the face of the death of Hope, Varian could not find his own. He had always placed it in Anduin.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Thrall watching him with sad eyes.

“We have won, Varian,” he said. “You have lost your son, but Anduin has won you freedom.”

Somehow, this did not make Varian feel any better, and he bent his head and wept.

And somewhere, far to the west, a blond head collapsed back against roughened scales.

* * *

“Anduin? Come on, I can’t carry you around forever, I’m not that large. Open your eyes.”

The blackness behind his lids was so inviting, and he felt himself falling a little further.

“Look, I really am about to drop you. Wake up!”

There was a swooping feeling in his gut, and he opened his eyes just in time to see the scales on Wrathion’s tail flick out of view. Wind suddenly whistled past his ears, and in a split second, he realised that he was falling down to where the red earth was cracked and all too real.

His brain was still processing the fact that he was falling to his death when Wrathion swooped back over and caught him once again, and it came rushing back.

“No, calm down! Damn it, Anduin, I can’t hold us both up if you’re having a panic attack! Breathe! You’re not dead yet, but we will be if you don’t stop kicking me!”

Anduin heaved in a great lungful or air, and fell still. He nearly died. He _would_ have died if a certain someone hadn’t anticipated that exact possibility and swooped in as he fell.

“Wrathion?”

“ _Yes,_ you great lump, of course it’s me,” Wrathion grumbled, who was certainly looking very draconic. Anduin hadn’t seen Wrathion in months, let alone seen his true form, and it was a bit of a shock to know that where Wrathion had once been about the size of a large dog, he was now big enough to haul Anduin’s sorry ass out of danger.

It was mildly impressive, but Anduin wasn’t going to say as much.

It was also a little scary. Likewise, Anduin wasn’t going to mention that, either.

“Now shut up and hold on, I’m going to set us down over there.”

‘Over there’ was a little spot of clear space on the side of one of the mountain ranges; Anduin really couldn’t recall the name, but he supposed it would come back to him in time. He tumbled from Wrathion’s grasp and immediately leaned over, clutching his leg and forcing ragged remnants of Light to pass through and ease the pain. For some reason, it wasn’t working.

Wrathion landed much more neatly, and transformed to his human guise in a puff of smoke. Straightening his turban – somehow impeccable – he came and sat next to Anduin, eyeing him thoughtfully.

“Thank you,” Anduin said, honestly and fervently. “I would have died.”

“Yes, you would have,” agreed Wrathion. “But that sort of outcome would be terribly inconvenient for me, and I thought it prudent to avoid it. I’m sure you have better things to do than float endlessly in the Twisting Nether.”

Anduin threw back his head and laughed.

It was hysterical, and a little big light-headed, but when he stopped to breathe he whipped his head around to Wrathion and smiled so hard that his entire face hurt. “You know what this means, though?”

Wrathion raised an eyebrow delicately, inviting him to go on.

“We won!” Anduin laughed again, his heart singing. “We beat the Burning Legion! It’s _okay!_ ”

He looked over and saw Wrathion trying to control a grin. Decorum meant a lot to him, Anduin had noticed, but they had just won the battle to end all battles. So he reached over, grabbed Wrathion by the shoulders, and pulled him into a backbreaking hug.

“Watch the epaulets!” Wrathion whined, but began laughing shortly and knocked Anduin’s head with his own. “Alright, alright, I’m happy, are you happy now?”

“More than ever.”

Suddenly Anduin stiffened. He thought he had died. If _he_ was convinced that he was dead, who knew what others might think? What his _father_ might think?

“Wrathion, we need to get back to the battle, what if someone thinks I’m dead?”

Wrathion leant back, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Actually, I had meant to talk to you about that.”

Anduin knew that tone. That was the tone Wrathion took whenever he was about to start on one of his monologues.

“I made you a promise, many years ago. That we would have adventures unlike any other, exploring lands and learning new things. It seems to me that now is the prime opportunity. You will be dearly missed, of course, but there will be no expectation of your return. For once, you and I have no obligations, and are free to do as we will.

“There is, of course, the problem of identity,” he continued, “but I have learnt many tips on disguise from my Blacktalons and I would suspect that I am entirely capable of passing you off as someone other than yourself for whenever the situation should arise. We have two worlds and four continents; does that not make you curious?”

“I can’t just desert my people.”

“You will not be deserting your people. If anything, you will return with a heroic welcome and tales of bravery and sacrifice.” Wrathion smirked. “A fine example of leadership, I should think.”

“But my father – ”

“You have lost him before,” he replied quietly, and Anduin flinched. “Yet you recovered. Your father will be sad, inconsolable even, but your return, _whenever that may be,_ shall rouse him from it. Anduin, you have an opportunity unlike any other. I, too, am free to do as I will. Shall we not take advantage of it?”

It was the ultimate dilemma. On one hand, freedom was something that Anduin had craved since he was a child, trapped in the high walls of Stormwind Keep. On the other, he knew exactly how heart rending it was to lose someone you loved, and he didn’t want to put his father through that.

Yet, by now, his father would assume him dead and already be grieving. He could not spare him that pain. Lessen it with his return, yes, but not spare him entirely.

For once in his life, Anduin desperately wanted to be selfish.

“I will let you think on it,” said Wrathion, standing and looking overly grandiose. Not so dissimilar to the Wrathion that Anduin remembered, to be honest. “Take your time; a few hours more or less will not hurt our good King Wrynn.”

So Anduin did. He thought long and hard, weighing the pros and cons, examining his feelings from all angles. But the time he stood, the sky had darkened and Outland’s two moons were edging over the horizon. The odd wash of light illuminated the carnage far off in the distance, the smoke still rising, and the lights of the campfires of both the Alliance and Horde, united.

That was what sealed his final decision.

Wrathion looked up at his approach, setting down the gem he had been shaping. “You are coming,” he stated simply.

Anduin smiled, holding out a hand. “Yes.”


	2. Giant Mushrooms

By nature, Anduin was not a particularly timid person, nor was he docile. He had been blessed with an unfortunate amount of curiousity, and the typical Wrynn Bloody-Mindedness that drove him to satisfy it.

Wrathion could understand that. He himself was known for his insatiable curiousity about all things titan. The only difference in that respect, between him and Anduin, was that Anduin insisted on always taking the route that seemed destined to cause him the most trouble, whether or not it was ultimately beneficial.

He thought it ridiculous, but there you had it.

Case in point: Hellfire Peninsula and the Dreghood Broken.

“I don’t understand, though,” Anduin said, watching with his chin propped on his fist. “Surely their forms could not change so much in such a short period of time?”

Wrathion shrugged. “My knowledge on the draenei and their history is equal to your own. I have never thought much about it.”

“I’m going to talk to them.”

Wrathion rolled his eyes. “Yes, good luck with – hey!”

He scrambled down the mountainside, following Anduin with as much grace as he could muster. Anduin was quicker, though, as he was not restricted by pride, although his newly hewn staff did make it amusing to watch. A veritable mountaineer, this one.

Anduin crouched behind a nearby rock, and Wrathion rolled to sit next to him. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? No one ever learnt anything by sitting still.”

“You are insane.” Wrathion struggled to put it to words. “These people are mad, they wouldn’t know friend from foe. It’s a miracle they’re not attacking each other. Really, I thought you were smarter than this.”

Anduin raised an eyebrow. “I’m smart enough. But you have to take risks to get things done, sometimes.”

“Yes, I am well aware of that. It was how I met you, I believe?”

He spoke delicately, but the implied meaning was blatant. It did little to deter Anduin, who just winced then shrugged, before manoeuvring his staff and standing up properly.

Wrathion sat there, watching from the sidelines as Anduin attempted to speak with the nearest Broken, who eyed him with a distinctly hostile air. Anduin tried to speak with the Broken, and this attracted the attention of several others. They approached slowly, sizing up the threat.

Wrathion had to admit, Anduin could be compelling when he wanted to be. So far, none of the Broken looked like they were about to stab him, merely that they weren’t averse to the idea. Anduin spoke a few words to them in Draenei – Wrathion wasn’t sure how he spoke it, given that Draenei was not a well known or widely spoken language – and extended his hands, a gesture clearly chosen to display trustworthiness and safety.

“This is going to get him killed,” Wrathion muttered darkly, curling up a little smaller and peeking around the rock. Remembering his turban and the demands of secrecy, he pulled it off and stashed it away behind him. As much as he loved the magnanimous and regal air it gave him, it was perhaps a little too conspicuous.

The Broken that Anduin had initially approached stepped forward, hands extended similarly. The dagger was held in one, and the message was clear. It was a temporary truce, and nothing more.

Wrathion was under no illusions that if he had done the same thing, the Broken would have gutted him on the spot. Anduin had a carefully cultivated image, and although it was subtler than Wrathion’s, it was there. The blond hair and blue eyes, along with his youth, made him look cheerful, young, and naïve. His pants and shirt were well made but ordinary looking, unlike the majesty of fine crafted armour. Even the staff he had made to replace his lost one was roughshod and blemished.

The only things that set him out from a crowd were his tabard, which was inside out to hide the Alliance insignia, and his _glow._ Maybe Wrathion was simply more attuned to magic and its auras, but Anduin was constantly illuminated with the Light, to the point where Wrathion could probably use him as a torch in a cave system.

Oh, and now he was sitting down, legs crossed and palms lying flat in an open posture. He was speaking, slowly and gently, and the Broken slowly followed his lead. Yes, the weapons were still drawn, but the air of hostility was dimming.

Wrathion shook his head. This was positively suicidal.

Shortly, Anduin stood, having said his fill and had a short and rather fragmented conversation with some of the Broken. He bowed, said a farewell in Draenei, and walked backwards towards Wrathion’s rock. The Broken watched him go.

“You’re utterly mad,” Wrathion hissed. “Completely and utterly. Do you know how close they were to killing you?”

“But they didn’t,” Anduin said, smiling widely. “And I learnt something new.”

“I certainly hope it was worth it. Come on, you can make your excuses when we’re out of here.”

With that, Wrathion transformed, flesh melting into scales quickly and smoothly. Anduin nodded, either agreeing with him or simply acknowledging his point, and swung himself onto Wrathion’s back. He was a little heavy, and perhaps Wrathion could have waited until he had grown a little more, but opportunities don’t grow on trees.

He leapt into the air and soared away, heading for Zangarmarsh. They were close to the border, and while the climate was terrible, there were less people who would be intent on murdering them on sight. Plus, Wrathion wanted to see if the Cenarion Expedition were really as renowned as they appeared.

“So, did you learn anything new and exciting? Something worth the possible homicide?”

“The Broken really aren’t as dissimilar to the draenei as I thought,” Anduin said, speaking louder to be heard over the rush of the wind. “Their language is similar enough to communicate, they have many similar customs, and when I approached them in the draenei way, they responded in kind. They aren’t stupid, either. Akoru, the one I was talking to, was really very clever, and a powerful shaman. He was clearly aware of what was going on around him, and the events taking place, he just didn’t want to get involved.”

“All that from half an hour of conversation?”

Anduin shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’ve never done anything similar.”

“True. But I am a dragon with the knowledge of the titans resting in my head, and the Earthwarder besides. You are a twenty-year-old human. There’s a slight difference.”

Anduin chuckled. “I’m fairly sure we’ve had this argument a thousand times over in Pandaria.”

“Quite possibly,” Wrathion agreed. “But until one of us wins, I think we’ll continue it.”

“Whatever you say.”

The border between the Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh was bizarre. Wrathion knew how terrain could change, as he had an intimate knowledge of Azeroth’s geography, yet the sudden an abrupt change between charred and scorching to dark and marshy jarred his senses. Maybe Outland didn’t follow the same rules that Azeroth did – which would make sense, as it was pretty much floating rock with nothing but magic and an atmosphere keeping it together.

“Wow, I was not expecting this,” Anduin said, leaning to get a better look at the border. “Hey, look, Cenarion guards. Should we say hello?”

“Not yet. I don’t think they’ll take to kindly to a black dragon.”

“They must have been updated on events in Azeroth, though. It’s been years.”

“Regardless, it’s a risk I am not willing to take.” Wrathion flew a little higher, grunting at the effort. Anduin really was heavier than he looked, for someone so scrawny. “Are those giant mushrooms?”

“It… would appear so. I had no idea they were literally giant. I thought they were just… a little bigger.”

The giant mushrooms were giant indeed. Easily ten times Wrathion’s height – or even more – the megaflora crowded the landscape. They looked much like ordinary mushrooms, although they were a strange colour that was neither beige nor blue, and Wrathion’s curiousity was piqued.

Wrathion soared closer, landing neatly on the top of one. It swayed marginally, but the size and strength of its stalk kept it stable.

Anduin slid off and crouched down, examining the texture. Wrathion was curious, so he leapt off the mushroom again and did a few circles, even dropping to lazily fly around the base. Could it be possibly for Azeroth to support this kind of plant? He would have to take a seed back when they returned. Maybe the draenei would know something.

There was also the question of the soil, but that would have to wait. Anduin was calling.

He flew up, hovering to one side of the mushroom. “Well?”

“It’s edible,” Anduin said, and Wrathion very nearly choked. “Doesn’t taste very good, but it’s not poisonous.”

“You ate it?”

“A little, and only after testing it.”

Wrathion frowned, and Anduin snapped his fingers, summoning a burst of light that faded as soon as it flashed. “I’ve learnt a few nifty spells in the past few years.”

“I can see that. I want to test the soil, are you coming down?”

“I think I will.”

Rather than waste time settling Anduin on his back again, Wrathion heaved him up in his arms and let gravity do its job.

Upon reaching the base again, he transformed into his human guise. Sometimes the fine motor skills of the humanoid races were vastly more preferable to a dragon’s claws.

He placed a hand on the soil, and shut his eyes.

Outland thrummed with magic. The very earth was enchanted and held together by nether, although one could definitely argue that it was only strewn through the atmosphere and had leached into the soil. Wrathion could tell the difference between Azeroth and Outland; his connection was weak, here, and his power better resembled that of a powerful druid than an Aspect. He wasn’t sure he liked it very much, but the challenge was invigorating.

“The soil is magic enriched, but it’s not otherworldly entirely,” he said, opening his eyes and withdrawing his connection to the earth. “The soil composition isn’t strange, either. It’s the same as any other marshland; not much sand, mostly loam and a little bit of clay.”

“Do you think these could grow in the Wetlands, then?” Anduin asked, crouching next to him. “I think there are druids there at the moment, we could give them a seedling and see if it can be sustained.”

“It would need regular upkeep and a lot of magic, but I think it is possible, certainly.” Wrathion frowned. “What do you suppose their seedlings look like? Smaller mushrooms?”

“Spores? I have no idea.” Anduin jerked his head towards the north. “There’s a Cenarion Expedition outpost that way, we can ask them.”

“What a fine idea. Lead the way.”

* * *

The druids at Cenarion Refuge did recognise Wrathion, and actually treated him very well. Part of him was expecting differently, but news travelled fast, and as Anduin said, it had been several years.

The one they seemed to regard with suspicion was actually Anduin, who was calling himself something inane that Wrathion didn’t catch. Anduin was not the best liar, and he seemed very uncomfortable pretending to be someone other than who he was.

“You’re going to have to act more natural,” Wrathion hissed, dragging him aside. “You aren’t an Alliance prince, you’re some random adventurer who wants to make a few gold. Right now you _look_ suspicious, everyone can tell.”

“I’ll try,” he promised, but Wrathion wasn’t fooled.

“Look, if you don’t like it, then go wait for me somewhere else. If you aren’t comfortable lying, go back to Stormwind the triumphant hero.” He rolled his eyes. “Loosen up a bit.”

“I don’t think you’re one to be lecturing me on loosening up.”

“I’m not wound tighter than a fuse on a goblin rocket,” Wrathion replied in a clipped tone. “Now do we have an understanding?”

Anduin nodded and ran a hand over his face. “Just got to be natural. Okay. I can do that.”

Wrathion leant in, eyeing Anduin with eyes narrowed. Anduin leant back, raising an eyebrow at him, and so Wrathion backed off, leaving that matter for another day.

“Right. Come on, we haven’t got all day.”

He turned and strode off, and after a moment, he heard Anduin jog to catch up with him.

“Apparently there’s another outpost in the centre of Zangarmarsh,” he said, feeling around in his pockets for the map he’d picked up. “Telredor, I think the name was. It’s a draenei outpost that is much closer to where all the action is going on. Here we’re only really close to the Broken and Hellfire Peninsula.”

“We’re leaving already?”

“Unless you have anything you particularly want to explore?” Wrathion slid the map back into a sleeve and straightened his turban. “I’m given to understand that the reservoir in the centre of Zangarmarsh is of particular importance.”

“The naga have a complex set up,” agreed Anduin. “One of the night elves was telling me about their armaments. I think it’s what’s affecting the marsh so much.”

“Them and the ogres.” Wrathion scowled. He did not like ogres. They had a nasty habit of killing dragons and not enough intelligence for Wrathion to manipulate.

Wrathion ended up deep in discussion with the head expedition leader, Ysiel Windsinger, who was quite willing to impart everything she knew so far on Zangarmarsh and its inhabitants.

“Well, let’s see,” she said. “There are us and the Broken here, in the southeast. The draenei have taken up the slack in the centre, near the naga, and then there’re the ogres to the northeast. Sporeggar are in the east, and I believe there are more ogres there? Honestly, the further they are from here, the less we know about them.” She sighed, rubbed her forehead, then shrugged. “We’re doing the best we can, but resources have always been limited, and now there are less and less adventurers who are here to help us. We’re spread too thin.”

Wrathion nodded thoughtfully. “I may be able to help with that. I have influence on Azeroth, with a few well placed words I can easily convince more to aid you. Even the more experienced ones will do anything for a few shiny gems. What aid do you need specifically?”

“Researchers. People willing to go out and do the ordinary work, get their hands muddy. Bodyguards for them.” She frowned and leant back to converse quickly and quietly with the tauren behind her. “Maybe some people who have experience or education in the natural world.”

Wrathion nodded. “Druids preferably, obviously, but I think I know some rangers and shaman who could also do admirably. I will send out word. Do you have a mail system back to Azeroth here?”

“Yes, we have a postman who takes mail to and from the Dark Portal each month. A dangerous job, but he’s very reliable.” She took out a piece of parchment and quickly scribbled a note. “This might help, should anyone question the validity of your claims. Not that we do – ” she disclaimed hurriedly, “but it has happened before when we’ve sent messages back and it’s very inconvenient.”

“Wonderful.” He tucked it into a pocket and smiled at her. “Pleasure doing business. You will inform me of any further conclusions in your research?”

“Absolutely. It’s an honour to help the Earthwarder.” She stood and bowed, and he inclined his head in return. He liked Ysiel, she knew where she stood and was genuinely intelligent. Maybe he would return one day.

He strolled out of the hall, rolling his eyes when he saw Anduin chatting with a few of the local traders. He went to call out his name, then realised he hadn’t taken notice of whatever Anduin’s fake name was, and resolved to sort that out later.

“Hello,” he said, coming up behind him. Anduin nearly leapt out of his skin, and gave him an irritated glare. “Sorry to intrude. I’ve finished speaking with Ysiel Windsinger,” he addressed Anduin, “and I’m ready to leave when you are.”

He got a weird look in response, so he decided to ignore it and wandered off to examine the soil once again, with Ysiel’s information in mind. Truth be told, it didn’t make much of a difference, except to formulate a few hypotheses for where on Azeroth the soil could be replicated.

“You’re in a good mood,” Anduin said, coming up behind him. He knelt down, elbows resting on his knees and eyes trained on where Wrathion was picking apart a few spores.

“I suppose so. It’s… nice, being able to do what I love with no threats hanging over my time.” He looked at Anduin sidelong. “I’m sure you understand.”

Anduin made a non-committal noise and then stood, lending a hand to pull Wrathion to his feet. “Well, I’m interested in vising Telredor, if you are. The draenei will probably be able to tell me about the Broken and the Lost Ones.”

“I’m quite certain they can. The only problem is if they will.” Wrathion shrugged and began to walk down the trail out of Cenarion Refuge. “How do you know that they want others to understand their history? To understand them? It might be an issue they prefer to leave alone.”

“I had thought of that,” Anduin admitted, “but seeing the Lost Ones… it made me think. If I ever lost touch with the Light – which is what I think has happened – I don’t know how I would survive. From what I know of the draenei, it forms a part of their very being. So having that taken away is something atrocious, and if I can find a way to help, I’m determined to do so.”

“Be that as it may, you’re what, twenty-one? What can you know that the Naaru don’t? That Prophet Velen himself doesn’t know?” Wrathion raised an eyebrow challengingly. “You don’t have the advantage of power, knowledge, or even connections and influence. You can’t expect to find an answer that has not already been found.”

Rather than appearing dejected or despondent, Wrathion’s argument seemed to spur Anduin on, and he lit up like a firework on the Lunar Festival. “But isn’t a fresh perspective sometimes all that’s needed? Even if all I can do is look at the problem in a different way, that has the potential to help just as much as having Velen’s connection to the Light.”

They debated back and forth all the way to Telredor, the hours of walking passing quickly and easily. So wrapped up in their debate were they that Wrathion didn’t even notice when they had reached the base of the largest mushroom he had ever seen, and Anduin nearly tripped when the elevator started rising.

“We should probably stay here for the night,” Anduin said, rubbing his knee. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to collapse.”

He did look worn out, now that Wrathion came to think about it, so he conceded and went off to find the inn while Anduin spoke to some of the guards.

He got two beds easily, as there was no one else staying there that night, and fell backwards into the nearest one and let out a sigh. He wasn’t tired so much as mentally taxed, what with all the new information to take in and investigate. It was both invigorating and exhausting.

He opened his eyes again as Anduin tumbled in – literally. His knee must have given out (interesting that it still did that, perhaps his injury had been more severe than Wrathion was aware of at the time), as he nearly hit the ground and was only saved by his grip on his staff. The innkeeper, Abidaar, was quick to help him, a sympathetic look on his face.

“Are you well?”

“Yes, thank you very much.” Anduin gave him a smile that almost reached his eyes. “It does that sometimes.”

Abidaar nodded and Anduin shuffled over to drop into the bed next to Wrathion face first. He didn’t move, so Wrathion prodded him. He had no intention of letting Anduin suffocate.

He rolled over and shot an exhausted look at Wrathion. “What? Please tell me we aren’t going and having a meeting with someone. I’d fall asleep and they’d be horribly offended.”

“Just making sure you weren’t trying to asphyxiate yourself with the mattress,” Wrathion replied silkily. Then, more seriously, “You’re okay?”

“Just tired.” He rolled to face the other side and waved over his shoulder. “Good night, Wrathion. Try to get more than three hours of sleep.”

“I was two,” Wrathion sniffed. “Forgive me for unpredictable sleeping habits.”

Anduin chuckled and fell silent.

* * *

Wrathion’s overall opinion of Zangarmarsh was that it was hot, humid, ridiculously sticky and very, very blue. Wrathion didn’t even know that blue was a natural colour for flora, let alone the blue haze that seems to permeate the atmosphere. Although, from what he’d heard, the rest of Outland was not much better on the ‘natural colouration’ side of things.

He’d even started to miss the Hellfire Peninsula, which was saying something. At least that wasn’t determined to suck him into its depths.

By which, he referred to the porosity of the bog land. It was even worse than the Wetlands, although Anduin wasn’t far off the mark when he drew the comparison. It almost felt like the land was on top of the water, rather than the other way around. The earth visibly sunk when he stepped on it, and as they got closer and closer to Coilfang Reservoir it became steadily more obvious. The soil became thick and lumpy, and it got all over Wrathion’s boots.

Part of him loved it. The other half of him wanted to burn it to ash and start again because whoever created it mustn’t have been thinking straight.

The technology the naga were using was fascinating. Wrathion hadn’t a clue what it did – siphon water from the reservoir, perhaps? – but it was complex and he wanted nothing more than to take it apart piece by piece. So, early that morning, he had left Anduin to his discussion with Anchorite Ahuum and set off to explore the reservoir by himself.

It also gave him some time to think on his decision.

It had been a spur of the moment choice, to choose to offer Anduin an escape and a reprieve. He hadn’t thought it through at all, although the possibility had been floating through his head for years. After the fiasco with the trial for Garrosh, however, he had tried not to dwell on it too much.

It appeared that Anduin had forgiven him, though. This raised several pertinent questions; ones which Wrathion didn’t want to know the answers to. He didn’t even want to question Anduin’s forgiveness on the off chance that it would disappear. He had spoken the truth, all those years ago: he did care about Anduin, but while he did want to see him happy, his own happiness and security came first. It was a priority that he couldn’t afford to shift, with the Legion looming on their doorstep and war raging daily.

Now, there was no Legion, although there would still be war. There would always be war. But the absence of visions and impending doom meant a paradigm shift, one that Wrathion feared he would be swept away with. It was as inevitable as his boots were wet.

He had made preparations back on Azeroth should he perish during the final battle, which he had honestly thought was more likely than survival. The Blacktalons were not to be disbanded; rather they would now operate under the command of Left and Right. They knew Wrathion’s interests and modus operandi better than anyone, and would keep working and serving as an information network for adventurers until the time came when there was no such need. (Privately, Wrathion doubted this outcome. There was always a need for information, and adventurers were particularly stubborn when it came to it.)

He had also left a set of matching gold rings in the care of the Postmaster, who would ensure they were delivered. He may not take much interest in his bodyguards’ personal lives, but never let it be said that he was unobservant.

Anduin had no such preparations. Perhaps it had been a mistake.

Or maybe Wrathion was being too hasty. He had no way of knowing if Anduin had prepared for that eventuality, or if his father had, which would be more likely. While Anduin certainly didn’t think himself immortal, Wrathion suspected that death was simply not something that he had realised just yet. Varian Wrynn was no stranger to death, and had probably prepared for all manner of circumstances. Then again, the only son and heir to the throne of Stormwind? Perhaps not.

He brushed these concerns aside. He had no way of knowing and it was not important enough to ask Anduin himself.

He felt water brushing against his boots and looked up. He had reached the edge of the reservoir, and the giant pipes and spires rose just ahead of him.

With a thought, he transformed into his true form, and leapt into the air to drift aimlessly in the skies. He couldn’t see much activity, although the pipes were clanging and clanking like nothing he’d ever heard before. He flew closer, alighting on top of one and inspecting the technology. The metal was one he was unfamiliar with, but the design was not as complicated as he first thought. It used the energy generated by the water – boiling it, he assumed, given the steam rising – to force the water further through the pipes and down _below_ the massive contraption.

His curiousity was stirred. But even he could admit that it would be unwise to venture below without further information, and as much as he was curious, it was not worth the time and effort it took to get his hands dirty. He could just talk to someone who had already been below.

He swept down and peered into the water. It was murky, but there was a distinct darkness in the centre in a circular shape, so there was probably a tunnel or another pipe there.

He resisted the urge to dive and jumped into the air again, heading back towards Telredor. Dragonflight was much faster than walking, and he landed after barely half an hour.

“Have fun?” he asked Anduin, shifting and strolling up to fall into step beside him. This time, Anduin didn’t startle, just smiled and nodded.

“I think I’d like to go to Nagrand, talk to the Kurenai there,” he said. “As much as Anchorite Ahuum has helped, there are still questions that even he can’t answer.”

“We’ll go to Nagrand next,” promised Wrathion, “as long as you come with me to see the western reaches of Zangarmarsh.”

“With pleasure. What are you looking for?”

Wrathion shrugged. “I’m not looking for anything. I’ve got too many questions about this place to even begin to form one single investigation. I just want to know _everything._ It’s so different from Azeroth, and it fascinates me.”

“I can understand that,” Anduin said wryly. “That’s how I felt in Pandaria.”

They walked in silence, just strolling around the base of the elevator up to Telredor. Anduin was busy thinking, and Wrathion let him have his preoccupation, instead choosing to watch their surroundings and keep wondering about the earth beneath them.

The time passed faster than Wrathion expected, and when he looked up again, it was visibly getting darker.

“We should go up,” he said, straightening his jacket and stepping towards the elevator. “You need sleep.”

“Yes, father,” Anduin replied dryly. He leant on his staff and ran a hand down it thoughtfully. “Do you suppose anyone here will have any better crafted staves? This thing’s not going to last more than a week.”

“That’s what you get when you grab a random stick of the ground,” Wrathion said as if talking to a child. “But yes, there might be. We can always ask.”

“A random stick on the ground is better than nothing,” Anduin said, “especially considering that you were so inconsiderate and left mine behind.”

“I’m so sorry. Next time I’m saving you from certain death I’ll be sure to rescue your sticks too.”

Anduin’s lips twitched, and he gave Wrathion a funny look out the corner of his eye. “Thanks.”

Wrathion got the feeling that it meant something more, but before he could question Anduin, the other prince stepped from the elevator and headed towards the inn.

“So, Sporeggar tomorrow?” Anduin asked, legs up and chin resting on his knees. It made him look younger and more childish, but the hawkish look in his eyes was anything but.

Wrathion shrugged lazily. “I thought so. We’d have to fly, of course; otherwise it’s way too far to travel in a single day. But I think we can make it. Obviously, we may have to camp the night, but who knows? There may be a town we can stay at.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Anduin’s eyes followed him as he started pacing. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing important.”

Anduin looked decidedly sceptical, and Wrathion smiled sheepishly. “It really isn’t. Just thinking about soil. I can’t help it.”

“If only Left and Right could see you now,” Anduin said, and he didn’t sound overly teasing. “They wouldn’t believe it. Wrathion, the Black Prince, enraptured by something as simple as soil composition.”

“It’s simply fascinating, though,” he said seriously. “The composition is normal for a marsh or wetland, but the magic in it has changed how fertile it is, and allows it to host megaflora while at the same time keeping water trapped within it. Or on it. I’m really not sure, and it’s a puzzle I’ve never encountered before. It certainly would be difficult to replicate on Azeroth, and the only place where I think it could even be attempted would be the Wetlands, because the soil composition isn’t that different. But the magic, the nether that runs through Outland, it’s affected the soil to such an extent that it directly changes the flora that inhabit it. It’s marvellous.”

Anduin grinned widely. “I thought you hated it.”

“Oh, I do, and I’d never live here in a million years. But it’s still interesting.”

“Then it can be interesting in the morning, too. Goodnight, Wrathion.”

“Goodnight. I’m waking you at sunrise. We have marshes to explore.”

“Light knows we haven’t explored enough of them,” came Anduin’s sleepy voice, and Wrathion allowed himself a laugh.

“Go to sleep.”

And so they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter would have been posted earlier, but unfortunately my inner nerdlord insisted that I make it as in-game factually correct as I could. This took... longer than expected. (Achievements are distracting!)  
> That being said, anyone named is an NPC that exists, and you can actually follow the route they're taking if you're interested.


	3. Picnics

“I don’t think this is the right way.”

“Prince Wrynn, I know where I’m going.”

“No, seriously, I don’t think this is the right way. I’m sure we’re going south, not west.”

Wrathion gave him an irritated look over his shoulder. “Who is the one with the map, me or you?”

He rolled his eyes and stuffed his hands in his sleeves. “Having a map and having a sense of direction are two separate things. Give me that thing.”

“No! I know where I’m going!”

They were flying over Zangarmarsh, mushrooms passing below them. Wrathion did indeed have the map, which was a little strange looking, but he had flatly refused for Anduin to even attempt to navigate. Some sort of draconic pride thing, Anduin suspected. Katrana Prestor had been the same.

He squinted into the distance. “Wrathion, those are the border mountains to Nagrand, I’m positive.”

“No, they’re not, it’s just – ” Wrathion looked up, slowed down marginally, then swore. “Damn it, those are the mountains that border onto Nagrand. We’ve been going the wrong way.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, yes.”

Wrathion landed on the nearest mushroom and barely gave Anduin enough time to slide off before he was shapeshifting. Anduin had always found the whole process a little bizarre, what with the smoke and all, but he couldn’t deny that it had its uses. “We’ve wasted nearly a day’s travel getting this far. Maybe we should just head straight for Nagrand.”

“You’re the one who wanted to visit western Zangarmarsh,” Anduin pointed out, smiling slightly. “If you want to give that up, that’s fine by me. Or we can turn around and try again tomorrow.”

Wrathion recoiled at that. “What, go back to Telredor and admit to getting lost? I think not. We’ll head straight on to Nagrand and perhaps visit later on. There’s still the rest of northern Outland to explore, I’m sure we’ll get to it someday.”

He shook his head and sniffed, before transforming again and giving Anduin an impatient look. “Well? Come on, we’ve got places to be. If we hurry, we can make Nagrand by nightfall.”

Some things didn’t change. Anduin swung himself onto Wrathion’s back and patiently sat through the jerky motions of take off.

They flew for several more hours, the mountains getting steadily closer and closer until they were soaring above the peaks. However, the sun was already setting, and Anduin was getting antsy.

“Do you want to find somewhere to land?” he asked. “I don’t want to still be flying at night time.”

Wrathion veered off to the side, gliding smoothly to a halt on a nearby plateau. The sheer grace that Wrathion displayed while flying never failed to impress Anduin, although that could be simply because he remembered Wrathion as a whelp. That had not been so graceful and elegant.

He slid off, careful to keep his bad leg steady, and looked around. They were still on the Zangarmarsh side of the mountains, looking out over the marsh, but the weather and surroundings had changed enough that it was noticeably a different area. It felt more like Elwynn Forest, oddly enough, or Loch Modan, although there was still a noticeable difference in the temperature and the hard earth beneath his feet.

Anduin rather liked it.

Wrathion didn’t shapeshift, instead choosing to prowl around and survey the area. “I can hear something,” he muttered, frowning. “It sounds like shrieking.”

Anduin tried to listen out for the noises, but heard nothing. “Take me closer?”

Wrathion obliged, but rather than flying, he ran and leapt from peak to peak. It made Anduin think of the mountain goats he’d seen in Dun Morogh, and he snickered at the thought.

Slowly, he began to notice the noises that Wrathion must have been hearing. They didn’t sound so much like shrieks as they did children at play, but there could not possibly be a settlement here. There was no space, and it was too dangerous, particularly for children.

Wrathion leapt over a peak and then came to an abrupt stop, making Anduin jolt in his seat.

“What is it?” he asked, stretching to peer over Wrathion into the valley below.

“There are children below,” Wrathion said perplexedly. “Lots of them. It… it looks like an orphanage, but…”

“An orphanage?” Anduin stared at him, before struggling to slide off again. This time, he landed oddly, and bit back a curse. “What?”

But Wrathion was right. There was a group of children playing together, under the watchful eye of a female troll. They were of various races, which gave credit to Wrathion’s orphanage theory, and there were no other adults present. The location was bizarre, but Anduin supposed that it must be effective, or else the caretaker would have moved them somewhere safer.

“Do we say hello?” he asked, leaning on his staff and watching the kids.

Wrathion let out a snort. “I don’t think that wise. Dragons are not something that children are prepared to see.”

“I sincerely doubt that. I think your mortal form would be more intimidating, to be honest.” Anduin nodded decisively. “I’m going to go talk to their mother. I’m sure they get a lot of adventurers stopping by, it won’t be that strange.”

“You’re positively bizarre, Anduin Wrynn.”

“What can I say? I like kids.”

He made his way down the slope slowly and carefully. He’d been doing a lot of rock climbing this past week, and it made him smile. The lessons from the mountaineers in Ironforge had paid off, it seemed. As the sky was getting darker, he lit the top of his staff with light. It had the added benefit of not making him seem like some kind of suspicious stranger who snuck up on unsuspecting orphans under the cover of darkness.

The caretaker noticed his descent, and he waved and smiled as best he could. She inclined her head to him, called the children back to the house, and wandered over.

“Good evenin’,” she said, reaching out a hand and helping him drop down the last few feet. “Who are you?”

“Andrew Branwell,” he lied, smiling cheerfully at her. “I was wondering if perhaps you might have space for a weary adventurer for the night?”

She eyed him, an edge to her gaze that made him think of Vol’jin, oddly enough. “I don’ see why not. Just don’ harm my kids and we’ll be fine.”

“I would never,” he assured her. “The opposite, actually. I’m a priest – if there’s anything I can do to help, I would be honoured.”

“Actually, one o’ my girls has got an injured wrist. I’ve done what I can, but the spirits ain’t always quick to take action. If you could take a look, that’ll do fine.”

Her accent wasn’t as strong as many of the trolls that Anduin had met, which was a clear indicator of how long she must have spent in Outland.

He followed her towards where the ragtag bunch of children were eyeing him from, exchanging idle conversation. Her name was Challe, and she’d been looking after many orphaned children since the denizens of Azeroth had first discovered Outland.

There was also the question of how Wrathion was taking being cheerfully abandoned. Probably badly, but Anduin couldn’t tell for sure. It was entirely possible that Wrathion had matured somewhat since their last expeditions.

Not that Anduin was going to put too much money on it, but the possibility was there regardless. It was always better to have too much faith in someone than too little.

Which reminded him, he was going to have to have a serious discussion with Wrathion at some point in the future. There was no way he was going to let Wrathion jump straight back into their old acquaintanceship without setting some boundaries, and making it clear that Anduin was not going to be stabbed in the back again. Figuratively.

“This is Andrew,” said Challe, clapping her hands and miraculously summoning the kids to her. “He’s gonna be staying with us tonight. Now, bed time. You don’ want to be staying up too late.”

There was a chorus of dissenting whines, but they went regardless, except for a tiny draenei girl who crept up to stand next to Anduin.

“You’re shiny,” she said seriously, and he crouched down so that he was on eye level with her.

“What makes you say that?”

She tapped his heart, then her head. “I can see it. Here,” she tapped his heart again, “and here,” his forehead, “and here.”

Oddly enough, the last spot she prodded was his knee.

“You have clever eyes,” he said. He sat down, crossing his legs in a meditative pose, and shut his eyes. He could feel the Light running through the girl’s veins, through the very core of her being. The draenei were intensely reverent people, and the Gift of the Naaru ran through each and every one of them, whether they were aware of it or not.

Which was what drew him to the question of the Broken and the Lost Ones, and how they could have lost such an intrinsic connection.

“Wow…” the girl said, and he smiled, opening his eyes again. “Your whole body lights up.”

“You can do it too,” he said. “Close your eyes, and think of peace.”

She did, frowning in concentration. Gently, he reached up and ran a hand down from her forehead, smoothing away the wrinkles and giving her a little _push_ with his own power. When she opened her eyes again she squealed in delight from seeing the tiny ball of light hovering in the palm of her hand.

“Practice,” he advised her. “I think you’ll be able to do great things one day.”

She nodded vigorously, and darted away to chatter with the other orphans.

“She’s got potential,” he said to Challe, following her into the little tent where the beds rested. “She may surprise you.”

“One o’ my older boys, Jara, has a great connection to the spirits,” she replied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s connected, too. Andrew, this is the girl I was talkin’ about. Sa’rah, say hello. This priest is here to help your wrist.”

Sa’rah, a little blood elf child, waved and smiled cheerily. “Hello!” Her wrist was bandaged well, but already the Light was pulling him towards it.

“Hello,” he replied. “May I look?”

She nodded and held it out. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m not like Chaddo, I don’t cry when I hurt myself.”

“You’re very brave,” he said, unwrapping the bandaging and wincing when he saw the inflammation. “But remember that it’s also brave to cry when you need to.”

“I know, but Chaddo only stubbed his toe and he was wailing like a baby.” She leant forward as if telling him a secret. “I think he’s pretty.”

“Do you?” He ran a hand over her wrist and bid the Light to do its work, and strings of gold quickly and smoothly wrapped around it.

“Yeah. But he doesn’t like it when I pull on his ears.”

“That’s because you shouldn’t.” He tugged one of hers for emphasis. “Do you like it when I pull yours?”

“No, but his are so short and weird.”

“They’re only weird because they’re different to yours. Everyone comes in different shapes, sizes and colours, and after a while everything becomes new and exciting, rather than weird.” He leant in, trading a secret for a secret. “I have a friend who has red eyes, and I thought that was weird when I met him. But now I know that it’s just part of who he is, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Now, is your wrist feeling better?”

She nodded. “Can I use it again? I don’t want to put the bandages on.”

He looked at Challe over his shoulder, and she subtly shook her head. “You don’t have to put the bandages on again, but I’d let it rest for a little longer. Don’t use it too much. And don’t use it to pull Chaddo’s ears.”

“Okay.” She grinned at him and mimed swinging a sword. “Thanks, mister.”

“You’re very welcome.” 

* * *

 

Anduin left Challe and her family the next morning with a smile and a wave, and was just about to head back up the slope to where he had left Wrathion when said dragon pre-empted him. Wrathion shot up from behind the peak and swept down, alighting neatly in front of Anduin and rolling his eyes when Anduin startled.

There was a chorus of ‘whoa’s from the orphans, before Sa’rah let out an excited, “That’s so cool! Look, it’s a dragon!”

Anduin grinned and rested his hand on the back of Wrathion’s neck. Wrathion didn’t seem to like that, and levelled a very unimpressed look at him before swinging his tail around and tripping him over.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re just jealous.” He swung himself up and waved to Challe. “Thanks for letting me stay the night. May your days be long and your hardships few.”

She looked nervous at the arrival of the black drake, but pulled herself together and gave him a nod. “Don’ be gettin’ yourself in trouble.”

Wrathion chose that moment to leap into the air again, and with more speed than Anduin thought him capable of, he cleared the cloud level and fell into a calm soar.

“You made friends,” he said.

“I did,” Anduin agreed. “There are some good kids there.”

He leant forward, resting his hands on his horizontal staff. The clouds were clearing again, and he now saw that they had cleared the top of the mountain range and the plains of Nagrand stretched out ahead of them. Green and grassy, with animals that were strange yet familiar, Anduin almost immediately fell in love. Even the floating bits of earth, some with trees poking up from them, didn’t faze him.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed.

Wrathion sniffed. “It’s untouched, that’s what it is. The magic here is lesser, more tied to native spirits than the arcane.”

“Anyone would think you were a blue dragon,” Anduin teased. “Obsessed with the magical properties in the earth. No interesting minerals here?”

“There’s a large crystal to the south-west,” he said. “But otherwise, no, I wouldn’t think so. It’s mostly – ”

He dropped off, and Anduin wished he could see his expression. “Something wrong?”

“There are still Legion outposts,” he bit out. “Forges.”

“I’m sure they’re being taken care of. Come on, this looks like the perfect place for a picnic.”

“Only you could see something as beautiful as this and decide to have a picnic.”

Anduin smiled, hearing the acquiescence in Wrathion’s tone. “We can pick up something to eat from the nearest town and camp out under a tree. The weather’s perfect, the sky is clear; what could possibly go wrong?”

“Please don’t say that and ruin our lucky streak.”

They ended up picking a spot about twenty minutes out of Garadar, where Wrathion snuck in and bought some food then picked Anduin up again and fled. It was just approaching lunchtime when Wrathion found a spot to his liking.

Anduin went to slide off his back, but his leg hit the ground the wrong way and he toppled over. His knee felt like it was on fire, and he quickly sent a few tendrils of the Light into it to keep it from getting too bad. Wrathion was too busy shapeshifting to notice – thank the Light for small blessings.

“You don’t want to move under the tree?” Wrathion asked, misinterpreting his position. “You’re going to get too hot in the sun.”

“Nothing can be hotter than the fires of the Legion,” he said darkly, but stood with some difficulty and made his way to the nearby shade.

They sat in companionable silence for some time, just enjoying the food and scenery. Nagrand really was beautiful, and Anduin found himself feeling oddly at home. Even as a hunter chasing a talbuk across the horizon disturbed the peace, he found it nothing short of amusing, if a little unlucky for the talbuk. He wondered if this was what Lordaeron would have looked like all those years ago.

Wrathion lay back, resting in the sun and curling around like a pleased lizard. “I’m going to take a nap,” he said with sleep already fogging his words. “Enjoy the sunshine.”

It made a welcome change from the murk of Zangarmarsh, that was for sure.

He leant back against the bark of the tree, shutting his eyes and sighing. His thoughts turned to his father, as they had been of late, and once again he began doubting his choice to abandon the Alliance. Because that was essentially what he had done, no matter what spin Wrathion might put on it. It didn’t matter that he was no longer instrumental in the political sphere, as the Alliance and Horde had finally set aside their differences permanently. He felt terrible about deserting them.

But at the same time, he couldn’t deny that his soul was singing simply from the feel of wind against his cheeks and the feeling of true freedom. It was heady and intoxicating. No wonder there were so many adventurers willing to do anything in order to travel; Anduin had never felt anything like it.

His leg gave a twinge of pain again, and he stole a glance towards Wrathion, relieved when he noticed that his eyes were closed. A waft of smoke drifted from Wrathion’s lips, and he shifted in his sleep.

Anduin reached down and toed his boot off, rolling his pant leg up to get a better look at his knee. The veins were dark, blackened by the fel magic of the pit lord. It had been causing Anduin immense pain over the past week, but it was dwindling, due to the healing and attention that he had been paying it. It made him shudder to think of what it could have been if he hadn’t been so lucky.

He gently let his hand rest on his kneecap before closing his eyes and letting the Light do its work.

When it was finished, the veins had lightened and it no longer hurt so much, although Anduin noted with worry that they were still darker than usual, and the spread had not reduced. He would have to speak with a priest in Shattrath.

“What is that?”

He nearly leapt out of his skin, and snapped his head up to see Wrathion propped up on one elbow, eyeing his knee with narrowed eyes.

“It’s my knee,” he said dryly. “You’ve seen it many times before.”

“Yes,” Wrathion said impatiently, “but why does it look like _that?_ ”

He pulled down his trouser leg in one short movement, self-conscious all of a sudden. “Permanent scarring,” he lied. “The damage from the Divine Bell never fully healed.”

“That doesn’t look like scarring.” Wrathion gave Anduin an unimpressed look. “You truly are a deplorable liar.”

Anduin pulled his knees up to his chest, unconsciously cradling his injured one in a hand. “I’m not lying.”

“Prince Wrynn, your injured knee was on the other side,” he said. “Don’t try to bluff, my memory is impeccable.”

With a guilty glance away, Anduin weighed his options. He damn well wasn’t going to tell Wrathion about the spell, because he didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, but he couldn’t say nothing. “The mushrooms in Zangarmarsh aren’t as edible as I thought at first. It’s nothing I can’t cure, but it’s a little embarrassing.”

Wrathion tilted his head back and laughed, the afternoon sunlight making patterns as it shone through the leaves above them. Anduin couldn’t believe how innocent it looked. “Only you would be embarrassed by something so trivial,” Wrathion said, collapsing back down again.

Maybe lying wasn’t as difficult as Anduin thought.

Wrathion eyed him lazily. “So, what next?”

“I don’t know.” Anduin shifted so that he was lying next to Wrathion, head pillowed on his arms. “I like it here.”

“Then here we shall stay. Explore, live a little. This was where the Frostwolf clan originated, you know,” he said. “Which is a little strange, as I see neither frost nor wolves. Maybe it was an error in translation.”

“Maybe. But remember that Outland isn’t the same as Draenor; it’s a torn apart and re-stitched version of the original, if you will.”

Wrathion then proceeded to lecture Anduin on the history of Nagrand and the orcs for twenty minutes straight, prompting a rather heated argument as to whether the Kurenai and Mag’har had equal claims to the land, and if they could co-exist in peace. Interestingly, Wrathion thought they could.

“The Mag’har are intrinsically different simply because they rejected Gul’dan,” he said. “The Kurenai are in a similar position, only reversed; where the draenei are Light blessed and what have you, the Broken are not. To that effect, they are both approaching a more neutral morality axis from opposing ends.”

“You think the orcs are necessarily evil?”

Wrathion shook his head. “Saying that would be like calling the Black Dragonflight evil, but one can’t help but judge off present circumstance. Orcs value strength and honour, but also bloodshed, and Gul’dan provided it in spades. Dark magic corrupted them. And I do think there is still some of that corruption that continues to linger.”

Anduin frowned, sitting up further and gesturing widely. “That’s incredibly biased, though. Orcs have shamanistic roots, just look around us. They are far more in tune with the spirits of the land than they are the dark magic that makes up parts of the arcane. Yes, they share a dark history, but so do we all! But yes, I do agree; the Kurenai and the Mag’har are more than capable of sharing a land with pride and honour. After all, the draenei and the orcs respected each other for the most part, so who’s to say they can’t do so again?”

“The Broken are not the same draenei,” Wrathion corrected, sounding oddly subdued.

“But they are no lesser for it.”

* * *

 

They ventured south to Halaa, before realising that it would be unwise to spend the night there. After all, coups were almost a daily occurrence, with neither Alliance nor Horde emissaries able to keep hold of the town for very long. So in a snap decision, Wrathion suggested searching out the Ethereals and staying overnight in their ‘town’.

Anduin didn’t mind Ethereals, but he really hadn’t had much experience with them and it was a little jarring to be confronted with the sheer amount of _capitalism_ present.

Not that Azeroth had a word for capitalism, nor was it a concept that had been thought over very much, as Stormwind did not have very many philosophers and even fewer economists.

Which explained a little bit about why everyone always seemed to be in debt to one group or another.

Anyway, Anduin was not used to thinking about making money, let alone making as much as possible with no legal and ethical concerns.

“We make a lot of money out of adventurers,” admitted Shadrek, having just dismissed a blood elf ranger with the task of poaching the numerous elekks for their ivory. “They’ll do whatever you ask if the price is right. Sometimes there’s a little haggling – can’t get too greedy, because they’re essentially freelance – but it usually works out in our favour.”

That… didn’t really surprise Anduin.

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in some work for me?” Shadrek asked slyly.

“I’m afraid not. Not really a very good adventurer, me. More of an explorer.”

“You’re got that look about you.” Shadrek looked him over, and Anduin shifted under his scrutiny. “That tunic doesn’t look like it’s seen much more than mud and grass. Want me to replace it for you?”

He held back a laugh and politely declined.

Wrathion popped his head back in again some time later, steering Anduin away with a grin as big as his head. “I quite like these folk,” he said. “I could do a lot of business with them.”

“Why,” asked Anduin, “does that not surprise me?”

They spent the night there, although Anduin was quite sure that Wrathion stole out at one point and made a few back alley deals with Gezhe. Anduin didn’t mind; it left him some privacy where he could take another look at his leg.

It was not faring any better, so he healed what he could and hid the rest. His natural inclination when using the Light was to prevent harm, and when that failed, his plan B was healing. Consequently, he wasn’t as skilled at it as he would have liked.

There was also the question of whether or not it _could_ be entirely healed, which he didn’t really know for certain. Fel magic never played nicely with divine magic.

Aeris Landing was just as beautiful in the morning as it was in the evening, Anduin found out. He woke just after sunrise, and just in time to see a herd of elekks meander across the Oshu’gun plains below, although given the incredible rumble of their footsteps he thought it would have been stranger to miss them.

“Where next?” Wrathion asked, popping up from Light knows where and sitting down next to Anduin. “Telaar? Halaa? Or even further, over to Shattrath?”

“All three?”

He bowed mockingly. “As my liege commands.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anduin replied. “You wouldn’t know subordination if it danced in front of you wearing nothing but a kilt.”

Wrathion raised an eyebrow, a smile twitching the edge of his mouth. “Now where did you learn that one, I wonder?”

“The dwarves have some wonderful phrases,” he said cheerfully. “Mostly about beer, and gold, but you find the odd gem here and there.”

The pun was terrible, but Wrathion laughed anyway, so Anduin considered it a win.

They ventured east to Halaa, first, thankfully finding it under Alliance control, which made it far easier for Anduin. Had it been under Horde control, no doubt he would have perched beside one of the wyvern roosts and waited for Wrathion, or perhaps made a grand entrance on a dragon and hope it distracted the guards from his true race.

It was a little curious as to why the Horde and Alliance were constantly fighting over it, though. Halaa was a strategic spot, yes, but neither held it long enough to do anything with it.

But Anduin was curious, and Wrathion liked anything that could result in shiny things, so they wandered round, talked to people, and didn’t end up leaving until well after lunchtime.

“I’m hungry,” Wrathion said. “We’re going to Telaar now. I want food.”

They walked to Telaar, which turned out to be not nearly as far away as either of them thought, and the walk was manageable. Anduin in particular quite enjoyed it, as it gave him a chance to think about the Telaari Broken and how best to make his inquiries without insulting anyone or getting his head removed from his neck.

Wrathion thought he was being an idiot, but Wrathion wouldn’t know tact if, well, it danced in front of him wearing nothing but a kilt.

When they reached Telaar, Anduin immediately made his way to the main building, but Wrathion grabbed he back of his tunic and tugged him back. He froze, wrenched Wrathion’s hand off, and then turned, raising an eyebrow.

“Food first,” he explained, and Anduin sighed and relented.

They had a nice lunch of clefthoof ribs and upon Wrathion’s insistence, ice cream.

“I’ve never really tried it before,” Wrathion said, examining it like it was one of the many artefacts his champions used to bring him. “Why is it pink?”

“Because it’s strawberry flavoured. Go on, try it.”

Wrathion did. “It’s cold.”

“Yes, that’s why it’s called _ice_ cream. It’s frozen cream, essentially.” Anduin took an experimental bite of his own and smiled. “It’s good.”

Wrathion was giving him a look of horror. “You just _bit_ it.”

He stuck out his tongue and took another bite. “Sometimes not being a lizard has its advantages.”

“I am not a lizard.”

“Yeah, sure.”

After lunch, Anduin made his way to speak with Arechron, the leader of the Kurenai and overseer of Telaar. If anyone could answer his questions about the Broken, then it would be him.

“The Broken are still draenei,” said Arechron, who had received Anduin with open arms and surprising enthusiasm. Clearly, few were interested in hearing the story of the Broken and the draenei. “We were corrupted by the same dark magic that corrupted the orcs, but we are still draenei.”

Arechron gave him a brief history of the Broken, complete with a bitter word or two about Akama, and explained the tension between the Broken and many draenei. Anduin had noticed as such during his time at the Exodar, although his conversations with Velen rarely touched upon it.

“It is not surprising,” Arechron said, shaking his head sadly. “There are many draenei who find us repulsive and do not trust us any longer. You of all people would understand why. The corruption stole our connection to the Light, and even we, the redeemed, cannot feel it any longer. That is why we make powerful shamans, but you will never see a priest or a paladin anymore.”

“Kurenai means redeemed, doesn’t it?”

“That is correct.”

Anduin pondered this for a while. “As far as I’ve seen, you aren’t that different from the draenei I spent time with in the Exodar. A little warier, and not as deeply religious, but your principles aren’t different. Why is it that the taint is now irreversible to you, while the orcs under a similar taint – arguably worse – are completely redeemed? Apart from those who choose to follow the path of dark magic, orcs on the whole are as uncorrupted as they were when Ner’zhul was still a shaman.”

Archeron gave Anduin a thoughtful look, before sighing and saying, “That, young one, is the question that we Broken are still trying to find the answer to.”

 


	4. Developments

Shattrath was glorious.

Wrathion meant that in nearly every sense of the word. The opportunities presented were innumerable, the strategic value incredible, and the power –

Well, suffice it to say that the Naaru certainly had a lot more going for them than Wrathion had originally given them credit for.

“Isn’t it marvellous?” Anduin asked, and Wrathion looked across at him. They were standing on the edge of the Aldor Rise, looking out over Shattrath City. The Aldor had received them coolly, but not without grace, and Wrathion attributed that to Anduin. He was dimly glowing with holy light, but whether he noticed it was the question.

“Yes, it really is,” he said, turning back. Even though it was the middle of the night, the city lived up to its name, shining brightly and illuminating the darkness.

“Do you think the Naaru would allow me to speak with them?” Anduin asked eagerly. “I spoke with O’ros in the Exodar once, and it was an incredible experience.”

“You’ve been to the Exodar? I was under the impression that your father was not in favour of you travelling beyond Stormwind.”

Anduin chuckled. “No, he really wasn’t. I kind of… ran away, I suppose. We had a falling out and I decided to pursue the Light with Prophet Velen.”

That explained how he spoke Draenei so well.

Wrathion decided against continuing that line of questioning, noticing the crease forming on Anduin’s brow, and turned his gaze towards opportunity. Shattrath had all manner of residents, and therefore, all manner of business waiting to happen. Aldor, Scryers, Lower City; all had secrets in one way or another.

He was quite happy to have questionable dealings if it meant learning something that few others knew. Information was power, as Fahrad had taught him. It felt a little strange to be doing so simply because he could, and not because information about the Burning Legion was vital to Azeroth’s survival, but it was refreshing nonetheless.

“You’ll certainly be able to find a better staff here,” Wrathion said, tapping the rough wood. “Maybe something inlaid with gold and silver, and imbedded with jewels.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t mix gold and silver.” Anduin rolled his eyes, smiling. “No, something simple and study will suffice.”

“Only you would say that.”

They meandered down to the Terrace of Light, and Wrathion had to physically restrain himself from physically restraining _Anduin,_ as he was bouncing on the balls of his feet as they got closer and closer to the great hall.

They came to a halt just inside an opening that opened out into the hall itself. A’dal, the great naaru of Shattrath City, was ahead of them, deep in conversation with several figures that Wrathion didn’t recognise. But the raw power that A’dal exuded was positively intoxicating. Wrathion was no blood elf, but if this is how they found magic, then he couldn’t argue over their addiction.

Anduin took a step forward, drawn to the naaru, and Wrathion noticed that his glow had strengthened just by being in its presence. It was a little weird.

It was when Anduin was nearly run into by a human mage that Wrathion realised his mistake. The woman apologised and gave Anduin a funny look, before running off to go do important mage things.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, quickly catching up. “Anyone could recognise you. Here, give me a minute.”

Anduin startled, but allowed Wrathion to lead him towards a small alcove. Quickly, Wrathion reached up and ruffled Anduin’s blond hair, making it look more windblown and messy. He shrugged out of his own tabard and offered it to Anduin. “Trade tabards, you’ll look less distinctive.”

Anduin did so, and then Wrathion unwound his turban and draped it around Anduin’s shoulders. The long piece of cloth made it difficult to tell Anduin’s build, and it hid his neck and the lower half of his face.

“That’ll have to do.” He ran a hand through his hat hair and tried to make it a little more presentable. “Now slouch a bit, loosen your posture.”

Anduin did as directed, and Wrathion led the way into the Terrace of Light.

Wrathion wasn’t particularly interested in speaking overly long with A’dal, so instead he went off and struck up a conversation with the local rogue trainer, an Ethereal with whom Wrathion was eager to do business.

“See many people these days?” he asked curiously, hands clasped behind his back.

“Not so much,” he replied. “But more with the onslaught of the Burning Legion. Business is always better with a goal in sight.”

He introduced himself as Windstalker Ifram, and Wrathion was pleased to know that he had already heard of him.

“Gezhe sent word, said you might be interested in doing business with some of us,” Ifram explained. “Besides, I can spot a fellow acquisitor from miles away.”

“There is always business,” Wrathion said with a chuckle. “As long as there is anything worth wanting, there will be business. Now, I am given to understand that there are other Ethereals here – where might I find them?”

“For that, I would say the Lower City. There’s a small trade group there who are eager to set up more contacts.”

With a word of thanks, Wrathion moved on, going forward to see how Anduin was going.

Anduin was…

Anduin was not going to be paying attention to anyone short of A’dal, so rather than hang around awkwardly at the edges of their conversation, Wrathion decided to go down and see if the Lower City was as opportunistic as he hoped.

He thought he saw Anduin watch him go, but he must have been mistaken, as when he glanced over his shoulder, Anduin was just as absorbed in his conversation as he had been before.

The Lower City was packed with people, refugees, and all manner of vendors and adventurers. Wrathion rather liked it, although he didn’t appreciate the orphan trying to pick his pocket.

“If I find even a copper missing,” he said, casually twisting the blood elf’s arm behind his back, “I will rip your ears off and make a necklace out of them. Make that known among your friends.”

The elf nodded hurriedly, and sped away the second he was freed.

Wrathion completely lost track of time, wandering from shop to shop and examining the bits and pieces that each vendor was eagerly trying to sell. Most of it was trash, and nothing that he considered important, but occasionally he would see the odd gem or pattern and his curiousity was aroused.

Unlike the Terrace of Light and the Aldor Rise, the Lower City didn’t seem to even acknowledge the time of day, let alone pack up shop for the night. It was just as busy at three o’clock in the morning as it was ten at night. Finally, Wrathion came to a halt at the World’s End Tavern, where the blood elf proprietress was busy booting several drunks from the premises.

“Is your best room free?” he asked, approaching her.

“Yes, actually. The current tenant is otherwise engaged.” She shot a mean look at one of the unruly drunks. “It’ll be fifteen gold a night, meals not included.”

He fished out the requisite coins and passed them over. “How many beds?”

“Only one.”

“That’ll be fine.” It wasn’t like he needed it. “I will return shortly, Miss…”

“Kylene,” she said. “At your service.”

“Wonderful.”

He had two matters to attend to. The first was setting up a solid business arrangement with the Consortium, as directed by Gezhe and Windstalker Ifram. He knew they were interested in furthering their contacts in Azeroth, and he was quite happy to help – for a price. He was, after all, very much a dragon at heart. That could wait until morning, though, as he had no intention of being treated with suspicion by the Peacekeepers for doing some literally shady deals.

The second matter was dragging Anduin away from the Naaru long enough to actually get a decent night’s sleep. He could just leave Anduin to his own devices, but a part of him felt responsible for him. It was an irritating feeling that he intensely begrudged. He wasn’t entirely sure if what he even felt was responsibility, or the stirrings of a friendship that he had sacrificed for the greater good so many years ago. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Close attachments only ended in trouble, in his experience. But he was self-aware enough to admit that a lot of that had come from previous betrayals, his fate as last of the Black Dragonflight, and the overarching goals that had so far driven his life. Killing Deathwing, preparing Azeroth’s adventurers for the return of the Burning Legion; these came at a price, and his ambition demanded that he paid it.

So he was understandably at a loss when it came to forming relationships again, now that he had the opportunity. His worry was that there would always be another battle on the horizon, one that would necessitate the severing of the relationships he had spent building.

But that was a problem for another day, and he put it out of his mind and went to find Anduin.

* * *

 

“You didn’t have to pay the entire fee,” Anduin said, stretching out on the admittedly huge bed. “Considering we’re sharing the room, it would be fair to share the price.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wrathion said, practically sitting in the brazier next to the door. It was nice to have some real heat again. “It was only fifteen gold, it would barely be worth the effort. Now go to sleep, I have things I need to get done in the morning and I don’t want you interfering.”

“How does my sleeping have anything to do with that?”

“It just does.”

Anduin rolled his eyes, pulled the blanket up to his ears, and curled up.

Wrathion stared into the brazier, watching the fire dance around. It was a little strange, knowing that he was on speaking terms with Anduin again. A year ago, this would have been laughable.

A year ago, a lot of things would have been laughable. He wondered how Left and Right were doing.

“You know,” Anduin said sleepily, “if you spent a little less time thinking and a little more time feeling, you might find a few more answers.”

Wrathion looked up, startled, but Anduin was already asleep.

* * *

 

“We’re going  _where?_ ”

“Auchindoun,” Anduin pronounced carefully.

“Why?”

“Because you said you wanted to speak to more Ethereals – don’t look at me like that, I know you – and because I want to see if the damage there has the same feeling as the Broken.”

“That’s all very studious of you, but Auchindoun is in the middle of a barren wasteland. Why would anyone want to venture there at all?”

Anduin shrugged. “If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to.”

Wrathion snorted and straightened his back, before leading the way down the passage out of Shattrath’s Lower City. “I can’t leave you alone to go, you’ll end up being carted back in a body bag, if they even find your body. Come on, we certainly aren’t waiting there until it’s dark. There’s all sorts of things that operate under cover of darkness, and I bet you that you’ll like none of them.”

Terokkar Forest was oddly grey. The trees were green, and the grass was green, but everything felt like it had a light layer of dust over it. Maybe Wrathion was just spoiled; Azeroth was really incredibly vibrant, particularly due to the care that the druids took of it.

The walk to Auchindoun’s blast radius was quiet, the only interruption being a phase hunter who phased halfway along the path, startling Wrathion and causing Anduin to trip and nearly barrel headlong into the forest floor. Wrathion nearly set the thing on fire, before it phased away again.

“There it is,” said Anduin as they cleared the treeline. “The sacred crypts of Auchindoun.”

It certainly was impressive, but Wrathion couldn’t hold back the shudder of repulsion. The temple itself could have been beautiful, once, but no sign of that was present anymore as it was wrecked, battered and decayed. He could _feel_ the charred earth moaning in pain.

“Well, we can’t let the Ethereals have all the spoils,” he muttered, continuing his stride. He wasn’t afraid of a broken wasteland.

Anduin fell into step. “You know, I have a feeling that the destruction of both Auchindoun and Karabor must be a factor in why the Broken still haven’t renewed their connection with the Light. They’re still corrupted or destroyed, whereas the orcs still have a pure homeland. Also, the orcs were removed from the site of their corruption; they came to Azeroth, and after a period of disconnect with shadow magic, they were cleansed. Ill and lethargic, certainly, but uncorrupted.”

“You’re assuming it works the same way for both.”

“Oh, certainly, but the source of corruption is the same in the end, so their cases aren’t that different.”

Wrathion was more than happy to play devil’s advocate, and delighted in winding Anduin up. They had practically crossed the entirety of the radius of the Bone Wastes before he ran out of ideas and Anduin smiled smugly.

“I can feel it,” Anduin explained. “Like when you know when something is wrong with Azeroth, I know when something is wrong with the Light. Not to the extent that you do, of course, but the metaphor works.”

Wrathion sniffed. “I don’t think so. My connection to Azeroth is like none ever before, surpassing even my father’s.”

“How would you know, you had him – ”

Suddenly Anduin’s eyes widened and he bent double, hands suddenly clutching his head. He was staring at something ahead, and try as Wrathion might, he couldn’t see anything to inspire that kind of reaction.

“Are you well?” he asked, bending down in front of Anduin. “Come on, look at me. What are you seeing?”

“Oh, Light,” Anduin choked out, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Anduin?” Wrathion reached out, not sure whether touch was still off limits. “Anduin, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

But Anduin stubbornly refused to talk, and presently he began to shake, great tremors that shuddered through his entire body. Wrathion didn’t know what to do. Unless Anduin told him what was wrong, there was nothing he could destroy or fight off.

He reached up and gently pried Anduin’s hands away from his head.

When their fingers touched, there was a strange noise like a wave hitting shore, and then voices crowded Wrathion’s ears. They spoke urgently, some lovingly and some desperately, with all of them clamouring for attention. It was a cacophony of unbearable noise.

“Anduin, I need you to move.” If it was a locational effect, possibly by being close to Auchindoun, then the obvious solution was to get Anduin out, pronto. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but you need to move, and I can’t do that unless you cooperate.”

“Get me out of here,” he gasped, and at Wrathion’s insistent tug, he followed, stumbling on his feet but with enough momentum that Wrathion could drag him away from the ruined temple.

After a minute or so, Anduin seemed to have calmed down, and he stopped shaking. He dropped down and knelt on the ground, rubbing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples.

“What was that?” Wrathion demanded.

“The spirits are still tied to their resting places, but the graves have been defiled and they can’t rest. I think…” He grimaced and shook his head. “They recognised someone who had the power to ease their passage and swarmed me.”

Wrathion winced, imagining the sudden onslaught of the desperate dead. No wonder Anduin had freaked. “Right. Well, we aren’t going in there.”

Anduin’s head shot up. “What? No, I’ll be fine, I just have to set up some shields and I’ll be okay. Give me a minute, please.”

Wrathion watched curiously as Anduin appeared to meditate, briefly frowning before his face smoothened out into a clear expression. A moment later, he opened his eyes again.

“Alright, it should be better now.”

“How do you expect to test this hypothesis?”

“Practically,” he said flatly, before getting up and recklessly jogging back to where his little episode had occurred.

“Anduin Wrynn!”

But Anduin was perfectly fine, and gave Wrathion a smug grin. “I told you. Really, you ought to have a little faith in me, I know what I’m doing.”

“Sometimes I seriously doubt that,” he replied darkly, before relenting and following Anduin under the arches that led into the central atrium.

It was silent as the grave. There was no wind, and everything was eerily still except for the sounds of hushed whispers and quiet moans. Wrathion rather hoped he was imagining the second one. The tattered banners that hung above them lay straight, and the crunch of stones under his boot was almost too sharp a sound in the silence.

“So where are the Ethereals you were speaking of?” he asked quietly. It felt odd to speak loudly, as if disturbing the dead with his voice was wrong.

“The Mana Tombs,” Anduin replied, voice just as low. “I asked A’dal about them briefly, and it said that there was immense power there, and the Ethereals were working on a method of harnessing it. There are, however, several Consortium folk at the entrance who are working to suit their own ends, and thwarting those of the rival Ethereals inside. I think you’d get along with them quite nicely.”

“I suspect you’re right,” said Wrathion. “And what do you intend to so while I’m off cavorting with the traders? Please tell me you don’t intend to investigate any of the crypts themselves. That would probably be the second most reckless and foolish decision you’ve made in your soon to be pitifully short life.”

“You’re such an optimist,” Anduin laughed. “No, I’m not going to subject myself to the Auchenai Crypts. I’m quite happy observing them from the back of my eyelids.”

“You’re taking a nap? Really? Prince Wrynn, I thought you were more responsible than that. It’s barely eleven o’clock.” Anduin rolled his eyes and folded his arms, a defensive movement that struck Wrathion as odd. Which reminded him – “You did get that knee looked at, yes?”

“Of course I did.” This didn’t exactly sound like a lie, so Wrathion took it at face value and resolved to interrogate him at a later date. He didn’t buy the mushroom story and he wasn’t buying this one, but it’d have to wait. He had tombs to explore.

“Whatever you say,” he said, pushing open the great doors and strolling forward, putting on his best smirk. “Good morning, gentlemen. How is your expedition going? Interested in a little business arrangement?”

Wrathion wasn’t making all of these deals for money, he explained to Anduin later that afternoon. Certainly, he found building up a hoard of resources satisfying, but it was more than that. People were quite happy to be pawns in someone’s scheme if there was a significant reward in it for them. That had been his main defence when he was running around with his champions in Pandaria. But more realistically, information was power. Many scholars and researchers tended to assume that the kind of information that was powerful was in the past; knowing things about long forgotten spells, or knowing the ins and outs of the history of a political rivalry. Wrathion, on the other hand, had a very different view.

Old information was only useful if it applied to new circumstances. But _new_ information always applied to new circumstances, because it derived straight from the events surrounding it. Information was powerful when it was current. No one was afraid of the past, because the past couldn’t hurt anyone, not anymore. But knowing who won what battle? What weapons a general carried? The state of political tensions between two races currently? Those were what were powerful. Those were what won and lost wars. Strike the anvil while it’s hot, the saying went. Wrathion learnt the information while it was current. Then, with that in hand, he could forge it into a future that suited him and his ends, and if his ends were beneficial to the denizens of Azeroth? All the better.

“You confuse me,” Anduin admitted. “It’s not that I don’t understand your methods and your motives, it’s just that I can’t understand how you can combine them and still find it the better solution.”

“Surprising words coming from the greatest diplomat in the Nether,” Wrathion said. “I was under the impression that your greatest curse was the curse of perception.”

Anduin laughed, and rubbed his temple. “I would be inclined to agree with you right now, what with all of these spirits clamouring for attention. But no, I am not omniscient. Never was. Don’t know why so many people think I am.”

“Perhaps you should try your hand at shadow magic? I hear gifted shadow priests are very talented at mind reading.”

Anduin twirled a few motes of Light around his finger, before sending the stream to dance around Wrathion’s turban; it made him feel oddly at ease, and he brushed them off, scowling. “I have, but it makes me ill. It’s not the solution everyone thinks it is, mind control. Here, I’ll show you.”

Anduin snapped his fingers, and suddenly Wrathion’s head spun, before he was looking at himself. His head hurt, and he reached up to rub his forehead, and noticed his hands were pale. The voices were whispering in his ear again, and his head felt odd. His thoughts were his own, but they felt different, as if run through a filter that spat out a product similar, but not identical.

Then he was reeling, sprawled out on the dusty floor.

“It’s not as easy as you think, is it?” Anduin asked, leaning over and offering a hand. Wrathion declined. “Mind vision is very different to mind control. Control is using the other person’s brain against them, and it’s tiring and exhausting and not worth the effort.”

“Still. I’d rather the price but still have the results. What’s the phrase? All magic comes with a price?”

“Probably,” Anduin agreed. “Some more taxing than others.”

He reached for his new staff – a sleek rod with metal-capped ends that Wrathion wouldn’t mind hitting someone over the head with – and manoeuvred himself into a standing position. He was limping a little, probably due to the long hike over to Auchindoun, and Wrathion idly wondered why the Light didn’t seem to be doing his old injury any favours.

“So, are you finished here?”

Wrathion shrugged. “As finished as business deals ever get, I suppose. It’s hard to know presently whether or not it’s a bargain or a rip-off. But yes, for the moment. Have you finished studying your eyelids?”

Anduin chuckled and nodded. “Most definitely. Where next?”

He pondered this for a moment. “Perhaps Shadowmoon Valley. We may as well check that off the list, although there is little there but elemental destruction and corrupted lands. It can’t hurt to look, can it?”

“Well…” Anduin gave his knee a light swat, and Wrathion rolled his eyes.

“Alright, it can, but this time you’ve got a black dragon on your side, and that’s more than most people can say.” He smirked and rolled his shoulders, drawing himself up with a regal air. He enjoyed feeling confident. “Come on, let’s go appease the spirits.”

He was just about to transform when Anduin went pale as a sheet, weaving on his feet. “Oh no, oh no, not now. Oh, Light, Wrathion – ”

“I knew we should have left before!” he snapped, dismissing the spell and hurrying over. “What can I do?”

“Psychic breakdown, get me out, oh Light,” Anduin babbled, slightly more coherent than last time but honestly, that didn’t make Wrathion feel much better. “I just, the shields just fell, I don’t understand, oh no…”

Wrathion looked around, seeing the open doors on the other end of the great atrium. “There might be an anchorite or someone here, surely. We can’t get out of range fast enough. Will it – wait, hold on. You spoke before about mind vision. Anduin, hey, listen to me. That’s when you only… piggyback on someone’s consciousness, yes? Anduin, are you paying attention?”

“Yes, yes, that’s what it does.”

“Then use it on me. I can’t hear the whispers. Here.” He grabbed Anduin’s hand and put it to his temple. “Come on, I’m giving you express consent and I _know_ you aren’t foolish enough to dismiss it on some moronic moral principle.”

“I won’t have control over my body,” he warned.

“I don’t care. Just do it.”

Anduin squeezed his eyes shut and his whole frame tensed, before suddenly going limp. Wrathion darted forward to catch him but was nearly bowled over by the sudden dead weight. Anduin felt lighter when Wrathion was in his true form.

He could feel a presence in the back of his mind, much like when he talked to his Blacktalons through the blood gems. That must be Anduin, then, using his mind as a host.

He needed to get out of here, but he couldn’t carry Anduin far enough in his mortal form. He would have to take his chances.

“This is going to be very uncomfortable,” he said for Anduin’s benefit. “I don’t know if it’s going to work, but you really haven’t given me a lot of options.”

With that said, he shifted shape into his draconic form. He could still feel Anduin’s presence, so clearly the spell lasted through shape changes; all the better for them both. He picked up Anduin’s unconscious body in his talons, and leapt into the air.

It took a little bit of gymnastics to get Anduin onto Wrathion’s back, and even then it was difficult to get Anduin out of Auchindoun, let alone somewhere safe where they could find someone to help with the inevitable migraines. Wrathion wasn’t very large yet, as far as dragons went, and if it weren’t for Anduin’s slight build then he would have had no chance safely transporting him from one end of Shattrath to the other, let alone across the Bone Wastes.

He landed (read: collapsed) just outside the Allerian Stronghold. He was fairly sure that there would be draenei at any Alliance post, and with draenei came healing.

“Anduin?” he asked. “We’re out of the Bone Wastes, come on. Wake up.”

He felt the presence in the back of his mind stir, then abruptly depart. Anduin’s eyes opened, and he took a ragged breath before pressing both hands to his head and letting out the most Light-awful scream Wrathion had ever heard in his life.

“Anduin!”

It attracted the attention of the guards stationed outside the stronghold, and soon Wrathion was swept up in a wave of commands, shouts, and hustling guards determined to either aid or imprison Anduin and himself. He sincerely hoped it was the former, but with high elves, one could never quite tell.

At some point he and Anduin were separated, and he found himself sat down on a bench in the main hall, a mug of water pressed into his hands. He took a gulp thankfully, and then tossed it down and stood up to demand to see Anduin.

“Calm down,” said a high elf woman in a dark dress. “Your friend is being taken care of, but we need to make sure that you, too, are alright. Are you hale?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine!” he snapped. “I need to see my friend! He had a psychic breakdown at Auchindoun and I must know how he fares.”

It felt strange, calling Anduin his friend. Really, he was just going along with the woman’s impression. He didn’t _really_ think of Anduin as a friend. More just someone who he happened to enjoy the company of and may have, sort of, ran away with.

That did sound awfully intimate, now that Wrathion thought about it. Acquaintances don’t just drop everything and run away to explore with each other. Maybe he would have to rethink his world model.

“You can’t keep me here,” he warned the high elf. “I will see him.”

“Yes, you will,” she said, and he found himself being shepherded back towards a bench. “But right now you need to look after yourself, too. You’re no good to your friend when you’re panicking. Here, sweetie.” She passed him another cup of water. Why was she giving him so much water? And why was she calling him ‘sweetie’? No one called the Black Prince ‘sweetie’. He needed to work on keeping up appearances.

“How is he?” he demanded twenty minutes later, when at last a new face appeared through the entrance. The night elf hastily reassured him.

“Your friend is fine,” she said. “He’s a little out of it, and he’ll need careful watching over to make sure that he doesn’t push himself past his limits again. But otherwise, yes, he is perfectly fine. He’s asking for you.”

He followed her to a small high elf dwelling, where Anduin was seated on the steps. He was holding his head, but otherwise seemed just as the night elf had described.

“Andrew,” said the elf, “your friend is here.”

“Thank you, Jenai.” Anduin looked up and gave Wrathion a dry smile. “You look calm.”

Wrathion walked over, looked him up and down, then smacked him around the head.

“Do not,” he said threateningly, “ever make me do that again. I don’t care if your shields ‘just broke’, you do not get to put yourself in dangerous situations and then put your life in my hands. While we are travelling partners, you will put yourself and your health above all else. Am I clear?”

Anduin blinked up at him. “I… wait, let me get this straight. You’re angry because I wasn’t selfish?”

“Avoiding giving yourself mental trauma is not being selfish, it’s being sensible.” Wrathion ran a hand over his face, waved Jenai away, and sat down next to Anduin on the step. It was a bit of a tight fit, but they managed. “Where did you get this stupid notion that everything else comes first?”

Anduin stretched out his legs and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze seemed to lose focus.

“When you are an heir to a throne,” he said slowly, “you learn a lot of things. Obviously, you have to do what is best for your people. That comes above your own comfort, and it may be above what you think is the right thing to do at the time.”

“Yes, yes, do you think I don’t know this?” Wrathion rolled his eyes. “I, too, am a prince.”

“I did not say prince,” he interrupted. “I said heir to a throne, and that’s the difference between us. Our titles may be the same, but our responsibilities are very different. Now let me finish.

“Sometimes you’re faced with a choice that seems clear cut and simple. For purposes of this discussion, lets say that you want to free one hundred people. This requires you to go into battle and fight a monster or six, and if you defeat them all, the people are safe. What would you do, in my position?”

“I would fight,” Wrathion said. “I am assuming I have a motive to save them?”

Anduin chuckled at that. “Only you would say that. Yes, you do.”

“Then yes, I would fight the monsters.”

“Even if you might die?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“And that’s the difference. You can fight, it’s what you’re skilled at and you can hold your own well enough, but you also don’t have a kingdom waiting for you, depending on your life. That’s the decision my father would likely make, unless there is a fair chance that he may not survive. I don’t have that guarantee.” He muttered a word and summoned a dome of light around them. “I can protect, and I can heal, but fighting has never been a strong point for me.”

“So…”

“So, I would not go in and save them.” He looked pained just by admitting that. “As much as I would want to, I wouldn’t. Someone else would have to. Because in order to do what’s best for my people, I would have to live on, and I couldn’t risk my life for one hundred people when I knew that I was unlikely to survive without aid. If someone else were with me, I could try, but even then it would be unwise.”

“I still fail to see the point you’re getting at.”

“I don’t have to live anymore,” Anduin said. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant that I can live or die on my own terms, now. If I want to risk ‘mental trauma’ so that a friend can pursue their own interests, then I can, and I’m going to. So, I’m sorry, but I absolutely get to put myself in dangerous situations, because it’s my life and you don’t get to tell me what to do with it.”

Wrathion turned this over in his mind, slotting it into his mental image of Anduin Llane Wrynn. He found himself understanding Anduin more and more, but at the same time, it felt like everything he thought he knew was being dismissed and pulled out from under him.

“Well,” he said, leaning back. “You’re certainly going to keep me on my toes.”


	5. Suspicions

“So, are we leaving today?” Anduin was itching to get out of the stronghold; there was too high a chance that someone would recognise him, and he could feel his guilt catching up as he ran away from it.

Wrathion flicked his tail and buried his head back into the blacksmith’s forge. “No. Tomorrow. It’s too cold to fly today.”

“We could walk, or borrow horses.”

“Somehow I don’t think they’ll be letting any of their mounts out of the country,” he replied sarcastically, and Anduin rolled his eyes. “And I don’t want to walk. It’s too cold. Why is it so cold? It wasn’t this cold last week.”

“Seasons are changing,” Anduin suggested, stretching out his arms. He had felt the sudden cold snap three days ago when his knee started acting up again – more so than usual, and certainly not helped by the fel magic that was still trapped in his veins. It had flared up suddenly, and if he hadn’t already been sitting down then he almost certainly would have collapsed.

“I gathered that,” Wrathion snapped back, trying to burrow further into the fire. It didn’t work, for obvious reasons, it just made an unfortunate dent in the brickwork around it that Anduin was sure the blacksmith wouldn’t appreciate.

He sat up properly, then hauled himself to his feet and smacked Wrathion on the back with his staff. “Come on, let’s go. I think the blacksmith would like to use his forge again, and we aren’t making it any easier for him.”

“No.”

Anduin couldn’t say he hadn’t been expecting this answer, but unlike the other times this had happened in the past week, he didn’t back down. Wrathion had been even more prickly and somewhat disagreeable ever since the incident at Auchindoun, and while Anduin wasn’t sure why, he had been content to let him have his space. But it had been a week, and Anduin’s knee hurt, and he didn’t have any patience for recalcitrant dragons.

“Look,” he said sharply, “I’ve tried to be nice, because I know something’s wrong and I know you don’t like it when other people interfere in your business. But it’s getting out of hand. Either sort it out yourself, or tell me what’s going on so that I can help.”

“You can help by leaving me alone,” Wrathion snapped, and so did Anduin. He turned around, waved dismissively at the blacksmith, and stormed out of the stronghold.

The grey-green leaves of the trees around him whipped around his face. He could feel a storm coming, as the winds picked up and the sunlight started to dim. Part of him wanted to go back to Allerian Stronghold, but the other half wanted to sulk. He also didn’t want to be near Wrathion, because as much as he appreciated his company, he was still trying to find it in himself to forgive and forget.

He found a comfortable log and perched upon it, staff across his knees and forearms resting on it. His foot started jiggling, seemingly of its own accord, and he stepped on it.

Anduin didn’t get angry often. He became frustrated and mildly annoyed, but he didn’t get angry. But Wrathion was driving him up the wall and he _didn’t know why._

So he did what he always did when he was troubled. He bent his head, clasped his hands, and prayed.

He didn’t ask for anything in particular. He didn’t even have a goal in mind, or even the faintest inkling like he did at his sunset prayers. He just let his faith wash over him and tried to forget about everything else other than the faint hum of the Light at his chest.

Perhaps half an hour later he heard a cracking noise from behind him, and the sound of footfalls. His eyes snapped open and he turned, expecting to see a warp stalker or a bear, but instead saw Wrathion making his way towards him.

“We’re going to Shadowmoon now,” he said.

Anduin blinked, then narrowed his eyes at Wrathion. “I’m sorry?”

“You wanted to get going. So we are. Let’s go to Shadowmoon.”

It occurred to him then that perhaps he was not the only one running away.

“Alright.” He stood expectantly.

Wrathion looked disconcerted. Clearly he hadn’t been expecting that answer. But he quickly composed himself and, in what Anduin was beginning to recognise as a nervous tick, straightened his turban. “Ahem. Right. Let’s go.”

He started off down the path, then stopped abruptly, and if Anduin hadn’t been watching he would have run into his back. “You can walk?”

“Of course.” Anduin tapped the ground with his staff to illustrate his point. “It’ll probably do me some good.”

The trek through Terrokar Forest felt a lot longer than it probably was. The track curved down and around, winding through trees and past ruined and destroyed villages. The trees were thick overhead, letting out only the barest glimpses of sunlight in thin shafts, and everywhere seemed dead. As though the taint from Auchindoun had travelled further than just the Bone Wastes.

Neither of them were in the mood for talking, and there was a strained silence that lasted the entire trip. Whenever Anduin glanced over at Wrathion, he saw him staring at his feet, deep in thought. It wasn’t even the pouty kind of introspection that Wrathion tended to sometimes; his expression was serious, and his brows deeply furrowed.

Anduin sighed and leaned a little more heavily on his staff.

The border between Shadowmoon and Terrokar was marked by the beginning of some truly impressive mountains that rivalled those in Dun Morogh. Unlike Dun Morogh, however, they were charred and blackened and emitted a foul aura that made the hairs on the back of Anduin’s neck stand on end.

As they walked through the pass, Wrathion became more alert, his eyes darting every which way. He seemed to be on edge, or at least more than usual.

“I don’t like it,” he said eventually. “Something doesn’t feel right. I think someone is watching us.”

Anduin instinctively started to look around, but Wrathion grabbed his arm and shook his head. “No, don’t. We don’t want to give them an excuse.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Wrathion?”

He smiled dryly and withdrew his grip, but didn’t say anything further.

Ahead of them, a giant volcano spitting fel magma came into sight. The fumes and haze over the valley made it difficult to make out, at least to Anduin, but it was an impressive sight nonetheless. He wondered how any adventurer could withstand not only the environment but also the constant, lurking danger, in order to make the world a safer place for those in it.

Or for the money. Anduin wasn’t so naïve as to assume that all adventurers did it for purely altruistic reasons.

Suddenly Wrathion whirled around and slammed his hand forward, sending a jet of flames that rushed just past Anduin. He stiffened and turned.

Four ghostly riders were charging towards them, the fire barely touching them. Wearing strange helmets and darkened clothes, they made no sound as they rode.

Instinctively, Anduin clapped his hands and called up a shimmering golden shield around Wrathion and himself. The riders reached them not a second later, and reared back in order to avoid crashing into the force of Anduin’s Barrier.

With a feral grin, Wrathion threw himself at the nearest rider, his daggers appearing from nowhere. Each strike was complemented with a jet of fire, and Anduin could barely follow his lightning fast movements.

Another rider must have thought Anduin the easier target, as they tried to ride towards him through the shield. For obvious reasons, this didn’t work; the spectral horse ran straight into it and staggered backwards as though dazed.

With half a mind on keeping up the shield, Anduin reached out and drew upon the Light to form shackles around the riders, keeping them in place and limiting their movement. Wrathion took this as a prime opportunity and began darting around, weaving in and out of sight and leaving a trail of fire and blood in his wake.

One rider managed to catch him by a glancing blow, their sword cutting into Wrathion’s elbow. With a disgusted noise, Wrathion spun around, kicked them in the back of the knees, and slit their throat. Anduin looked away.

The last lone fighter was left, still perched on their horse and holding a sword out defensively. Wrathion didn’t even hesitate, he simply strode up, grabbed the rider by the (oddly corporeal) collar, and dragged them down.

He pulled off the riders’ helmet, revealing the decaying visage of what had once been a male orc.

“What have we here?” he asked, peering at the undead orc’s face. “I suppose you must be a Ghostrider of Karabor. How are you still… not dead?”

The orc spat in Wrathion’s face and Wrathion stabbed him in the heart.

Anduin closed his eyes, gripped his staff, and let out a long breath. When he opened them again, Wrathion was starting back down the path, on towards wherever in Shadowmoon he intended to go.

“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “We can’t let a few dead orcs hold us back.”

He seemed more cheerful, more purposeful than before, and Anduin couldn’t help but feel worried by that. He had never actually seen Wrathion fight someone before, not at this level of skill; he’d always relied on his agents and Blacktalons to do it for him.

With a sigh, he jogged forward to fall into step with the ever-enigmatic prince.

* * *

 Two gloved hands slammed down onto the table in front of him, and Anduin looked up from his mug to see Wrathion grinning manically at him.

“Guess what fantastic news I’ve just heard,” he said.

“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“There are dragons in Shadowmoon!”

Anduin eyed him dubiously. “You don’t sound terribly happy about that.”

With a startling amount of grace, Wrathion slides onto the bench opposite, waving the innkeeper away. “I wouldn’t say happy, no,” he said, calming down somewhat. “But I am interested. And a small part of me is concerned as well, because while I’d heard rumours that there were black dragons in Outland, I confess I hadn’t considered the possibility with as much thought as it was due.”

“And you’re going to go look for them,” Anduin concluded. “And you’re going to kill them?”

“Probably,” Wrathion said with a nonchalant shrug. “Or make sure to have someone else do it.”

Anduin knew he had no hope of convincing Wrathion otherwise, and just sighed and looked down at his beer. “Alright. When are we leaving?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything about you coming with me. You’re staying here.”

That got a reaction. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re a liability,” said Wrathion flatly, folding his arms. “If we get into trouble, you’ll only drag me down.”

Anduin’s eyes widened and he stared at Wrathion, open-mouthed in shock. While he knew that Wrathion had a certain amount of disdain towards him – that hadn’t really changed much – he never thought that it would become so blatant that Wrathion would discard his company entirely. This was wrong.

He opened his mouth to demand an explanation then stopped, abruptly shutting it. It wasn’t his job to interrogate Wrathion on his life choices. He knew Wrathion was still in a bad mood from yesterday, and it was likely the reason behind this sudden change in demeanour.

Wrathion liked to be left alone. Anduin just had to respect that.

“Alright.”

Wrathion hesitated imperceptibly. “Good.”

“Fine.”

“… _finer._ ”

Anduin supressed a smile. As much as Wrathion tried to keep up the mature, all-knowing, impressive figure, there were times when it slipped a little. It wasn’t that Anduin didn’t like professional-Wrathion, it was just that it was much easier to be friends with a Wrathion who acted his age.

Not that he really had the authority to say that. Light knows he hasn’t acted his age since he was seven.

“You’re not going to follow me, are you?”

Anduin snorted. “Wrathion, I greatly enjoy your company and I would love to come with you, but believe it or not, I am capable of complying with what you think is best for you. I understand you need space. I may not think it fair, but it’s your choice.”

Wrathion gave him the first honest smile Anduin had seen in a long time. “I appreciate it. You’ll…” He hesitated. “You’ll be alright here?”

Anduin raised his mug. “Go before I change my mind.”

Wrathion nodded and slipped out, leaving Anduin to his thoughts.

“Excuse me,” he asked the Scryer innkeeper. “How many bases of operation are there in Shadowmoon?”

He learnt that other than the Sanctum of the Stars, there was a complementary Aldor base to the north. If Wrathion was going to go off and leave Anduin in the dark, then he had no qualms about going to satiate his curiousity.

He started off down the road, and shivered as the ruined Black Temple began to loom over him. Above him he saw the dragons Wrathion was talking about, beautiful beasts that were oddly translucent and seemed to reflect the colours of the crystals in the fields below. They looked nothing like the dragons that Anduin knew were native to Azeroth, but he could see the similarities between them and Wrathion.

His grip on his staff tightened as he walked closer towards the ruins of Karabor.

Suddenly, before he could entirely register what was happening, a shadow descended from above and his feet no longer touched the ground. With a surprised yell, he realised that one of the nether drakes had snatched him up.

Knowing better than to struggle he went limp, and watched the dragon nervously.

“I’m not going to eat you,” she said. Her voice sounded like it was trapped behind glass, distorted and far away. “Our leader Neltharaku just needs you to corroborate a stranger’s story.”

There was a deep rumble, and Anduin realised the dragoness was laughing. “I make no promises about your life afterwards. My siblings are not so apathetic as I.”

“Wonderful,” he said faintly. This was bringing back bad memories.

Neltharaku was a majestic drake with turquoise scales. Wrathion in his dragon form was hovering in front, deep in enthusiastic conversation in Draconic.

“This is your friend,” said Anduin’s kidnapper. Wrathion looked over, narrowed his eyes, and then sent the dragoness one of the most menacing glares Anduin had seen in a long time, and his father was Varian Wrynn.

At that point, Anduin zoned out. As much as he knew that it would be a good idea to pay attention to what was going on, being held hundreds of feet in the air by a dark coloured dragoness was not something that he was able to handle with a clear head. He had mostly come to terms with the Onyxia/Katrana Prestor debacle, but sometimes these things aren’t logical.

The ground really was an awful way away.

Then it started getting closer.

He let out a very undignified scream, realising that the dragoness had _dropped him_ when he became unnecessary.

“Prince!” A black blur shot past him and began dropping along with him, only slightly slower in order to catch him. He grabbed onto Wrathion’s horns and swung himself onto his back. Glancing behind him, he saw the nether dragons hovering, looking dazed and disoriented.

“You psychic screamed,” Wrathion explained, shooting off in the opposite direction. “It’ll buy us enough time to get out of here.”

“So, dragons not so interesting?”

“Interesting, yes.” Wrathion shuddered, and Anduin swayed on his perch. “Sane? Open to persuasion? No.”

“So,” Anduin said, “have you learnt your lesson?”

“What lesson?”

“Next time, you take me with you.”

* * *

“On a scale of one to ten, how does this compare to Pandaria?” Wrathion called, slashing his daggers at the nearest demon.

Seeing a felhunter trying to sneak up on Wrathion, Anduin quickly called up a shield before sending a blast of holy light at it. “Seven. I enjoy having fully functional limbs.”

Wrathion winced before turning to drive his daggers into the felhunter’s skull. It shrieked and rolled over, not unlike a dog, before lying still. “And the scenery?”

“Could use some work.” The felguard Wrathion had stabbed earlier tried to smash his head in, but was repelled by the strength of Anduin’s shield. “What brought this on?”

Wrathion seemed to lose patience with the fight and set the remaining two demons on fire, his hands curving into claws and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. He winced, though, and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a painful looking gash.

“How good is your healing?” he asked.

Anduin blanched. The Light hadn’t been responding nearly as well since the Final Battle, and while his shields and barriers hadn’t seemed to be affected very much, his healing hadn’t recovered.

“I can try,” he offered. “But let’s leave Shadowmoon first.”

They were a few minutes from the border, and while Terrokar was dangerous, it was nowhere near the level that Shadowmoon Valley was.

“Well, that was a massive waste of time,” Wrathion said as Anduin tried to get the Light to close up his wound. “We should make a detour to Shattrath before we go north.”

“It would have turned out a little better if you hadn’t recklessly gone to investigate probably aggressive dragons,” sniped Anduin. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”

Wrathion shrugged laconically and leant back, but his eyes followed Anduin’s movements thoughtfully. “Not entirely,” he allowed.

Anduin traced the outline of the gash with a finger before laying his hand on it. It flared with light for a moment, then died away, and when he removed it nothing remained but a scar.

Wrathion shook his sleeve down again and pulled on his gauntlet, smiling at Anduin. “Lovely.”

They were sitting by a river, dangling their feet into the cool water. Occasionally a warp stalker would wander past, hissing at them hostilely, but they hadn’t been bothered further.

“How to explore Shadowmoon Valley in two days or less,” Anduin muttered.

“Don’t,” Wrathion finished, and they shared a laugh. “What were we thinking?”

“We weren’t.” Anduin buried the end of his staff into the ground and rested his wrists on it, then dropped his cheek onto his crossed hands and smiled sheepishly at Wrathion. “I was angry at you. You were wrapped up in your own problems. Both of us weren’t thinking straight.”

Wrathion stiffened, then sighed. “I suppose you may be right.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment or two, then Wrathion laid his hand on Anduin’s knee. Anduin startled, not expecting the sudden contact, and eyed him curiously.

“Is this acceptable?” Wrathion shrugged. “I don’t know what our boundaries are, or how they’ve changed, or even what they were in the beginning.”

Anduin thought about this. It made sense given that Wrathion was a not-so-secret control freak, which was not to say that he didn’t understand it; Anduin had no problems with Wrathion needing some form of control over a situation in order to feel secure, as long as it didn’t hinder Anduin’s own freedom.

“I understand,” he said, “and I think it’s both out faults. We set off to fast and on an adrenaline high, and didn’t stop to think.”

He stuck out his hand.

“I’m Anduin. It’s nice to meet you.”

Wrathion’s lip twitched, and he grasped Anduin’s hand. “Wrathion.”

They shook, and Anduin smiled. “Friends?”

He wasn’t offended by how long it took Wrathion to contemplate the offer, because after a few minutes he smiled and said, “Friends.”

* * *

“So far, the political scene seems stable and secure,” said Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker, one of the few people who could keep up with King Varian Wrynn’s long legged stride. “The council is busy making reparations and creating new jobs, and many of the guilds have their hands full with reorganisation and all of that business, so much that they simply don’t have the time to be worrying about other people, or the Horde for that matter.”

“And the church? How are they currently?”

Grayson coughed, knowing that the position he was in was an awkward one, and there was no good answer to this question short of lying. “We are taking the loss of Prince Anduin hard, but the doors remain open to anyone and no function has been lost. High Priestess Laurena is doing her utmost to ensure that the people see this victory and sacrifice for what they are.”

Varian nodded and opened the door into the public keep. Stormwind Keep was separated into multiple wings, which unhelpfully were not organised by public/private, but rather by accessibility. The library, tactics hall and throne room were all available and open, with two doors leading off into the private rooms and sections of the keep that few apart from the royal family and assorted nobles and councillors were allowed entry into.

Grayson took a moment to analyse Varian. Laurena had told him on no uncertain terms that he was to let her know the second Varian started to waver. He himself didn’t know how painful it was to lose a child, but Laurena did, and she had emphasised the need for a support system that Varian could safely rely on.

“Think of it this way,” she had said. “When going into enemy lands, you send your knights in. But you also bring SI:7 as a backup network. This is a similar idea, except SI:7 becomes a willing listener and someone to cry on.”

“King Varian is not crying on me.”

“I would not expect him to,” she had agreed, “but if not you then another. That is where we failed Lady Proudmoore. I do not intend to do so again.”

So, Grayson was watching Varian for even the slightest hint of depression. But he was a paladin, not a spy, and found himself confronting the problem head on.

“Are you alright, your majesty?” he asked gently.

Varian let out a sigh and stepped up to his throne, lowering himself onto it slowly. “I have been better,” he said gruffly.

“Erm… is there anything I can do?”

“No, but I greatly appreciate your concern, Lord Grayson.” Varian gave him a brief smile, and Grayson took it as the truth. “I’m sure you’re very busy. Thank you for taking the time to update me on things.”

Recognising a dismissal for what it was, Grayson bowed, and left to find High Priestess Laurena.

Stormwind City was both celebrating and mourning, in equal amounts. Many of the drapes in the windows of houses were black, but there were balloons tied to trees and plenty of people with mugs, toasting fallen and celebrating champions alike. There were flower petals and leaves scattered along the streets, but the cemetery had never been so full of mourners since the Third War. The binary was painful, but beautiful in its own way, and he was smiling when he climbed the steps to the Cathedral of Light.

“How did it go?” asked Laurena, walking up to meet him and kissing him on the cheek.

“As well as could be expected,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I’m not much of a spy.”

“If I had wanted a spy, I would have spoken with Mathias.” They walked side by side into Grayson’s study, where Katherine and Shaina were deep in discussion.

“Excuse us, miladies,” Grayson said, and they departed with a nod to continue elsewhere. He pulled out a chair for Laurena and sat down on the edge of his desk.

“How is he?” she asked.

“He seems to be holding it together, and clearly the peace and celebrations of the people are making it easier for him, but he’s not well. He’s… tired, I think. He needs a break. If he were one of my paladins, I would send him to Stranglethorn to examine the beaches, but as the king he doesn’t have that luxury.” Grayson scratched his head and sighed. “I don’t know. You’re better at this, you speak to him.”

Laurena crossed her hands in her lap and pursed her lips. “It is not my place to do so. But I do have an idea; can you remember who trained Queen Tiffin?”

“Of course. Michelle de Beau, she was a very accomplished paladin who served in the Second and Third Wars. She retired, though. I have no idea where she could have gone. Why? Do you think she should speak to the king?”

She shrugged. “It couldn’t do any harm at this point.”

Grayson hesitated. “Do you think King Greymane is likely to return any time soon?”

“That’s a good idea,” she said, “but I know Gilneas is still being rebuilt and the Forsaken are not happy about it. It would be unwise of him to leave.”

He let out an enormous sigh and ran a hand down his face, as if to brush away the strain. “Alright. I’ll talk so some of my paladins, see if any of them have come in contact with de Beau recently.”

Laurena nodded and stood. “Light bless you,” she said quietly, before exiting the room and leaving Grayson to his thoughts.

He was just about to return to his work when Katherine came in, a note clutched in one hand. She offered it to him, and with a sigh, he broke the seal and read its contents. It was a missive from High Sorcerer Andromath calling for his presence at the Wizard’s Sanctum immediately.

Why the High Sorcerer would want Grayson of all people, he didn’t know, but he duly packed up his things, sheathed his sword, and started on the walk to the Mage Quarter. He was doing a lot of walking today. It felt like more exercise than he got in a week, although that could just be the dry spell that Stormwind was going through.

As he passed through the portal at the top of the Wizard’s Tower he heard three distinctly different voices arguing. This was not exactly a rare occurance; the Wizard’s Sanctum was renowned for its hustle and bustle to the point of insensibility. However, these Grayson recognised as High Sorcerer Andromath, Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth, and Mathias Shaw, the leader of SI:7.

“Ah, Lord Grayson,” said Andromath, seeing him enter. “Come on over.”

“Is something wrong?”

“We’ve had a disturbing report from Shattrath City,” Jes-Tereth said, getting down to business immediately, Light bless her. “Apparently one of the High Sorcerer’s mages has come into contact with someone who looks like Prince Anduin.”

“You can’t trust a mage to know a blonde from a brunette,” said Mathias dismissively. “I think you’re all gettin’ worked up for nothing.”

Andromath sighed and appealed to Grayson. “We’ve been debating this for some time. What are your thoughts?”

“Have you told King Varian?”

Jes-Tereth snorted. “No. What do you think we are, heartless? Stupid? Without proof, we aren’t telling him anything.”

“I suppose it’s a remote possibility,” Grayson mused. “No body was found, after all. But Mathias is the expert here. I trust his opinion.”

“My mage is a high ranking agent of the Kirin Tor,” Andromath said. “It would be unlike her to lie, or to be deceived. The fact that she thought it worthy of bringing it to my attention speaks wonders. She reports that she ran into a young man who had some resemblance seeking an audience with the naaru A’dal.”

“How close did she get?” Mathias asked.

Andromath’s lips twitched, the most expression Grayson had ever seen on the stoic man’s face. “She _literally_ ran into him.”

“So close enough to really be able to see him.” Mathias scratched his chin. “I dunno. I’m still not convinced, but I guess it’s possible.”

“Was he with anyone?” Grayson asked, turning back to Andromath, but it was Jes-Tereth who answered.

“Yes,” she bit out. “The Black Prince, Wrathion.”

Grayson winced from the sheer venom in her voice. Jes-Tereth and Wrathion had only spoken to each other once, and it was not pretty, from what he’d heard. Jes-Tereth was not a fan of people whose alliances and alignments were obscure, and she certainly didn’t approve of Wrathion’s habit for using people without thought of the consequences.

“And she’s sure?”

“Very.” Andromath shrugged. “She’s been to conferences which the Black Prince was also in attendance. She knows what he looks like; besides, he’s distinctive.”

“But to claim to have seen both Anduin _and_ Prince Wrathion?” Mathias laughed aloud. “You’re sure she’s alright? Sound’s like she’s been eating too many of those Zangarmarsh mushrooms, if you know what I mean.”

Grayson sighed. “Well, all I can say is that the just thing to do would be to find some proof of her claims, and then tell the king. Even if it isn’t Anduin, we’ll know what the Black Prince is doing, which is always useful. Justice isn’t always kind.”

“You want me to send out some agents, try to scope out the area?”

Jes-Tereth shook her head and held up a hand, signalling for silence. “No. We need to focus our energies here, into Stormwind and the Alliance. The Horde isn’t going to uphold peace for very long. We can’t spare anyone. But,” she said, her look turning crafty in a way that made Grayson shiver, “if the Kirin Tor were to decide that it would be in their best interests to, say, delegate an agent to examining ley-lines or whatever it is you mages study, then it would be neither our business, nor the king’s.”

Mathias let out an appreciative whistle and shared a glance with Grayson and Andromath. “Lady, I like the way you think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you didn't think that Wrathion and Anduin were going to get along all hunky dory and manage to stay secret because um no. Sorry.
> 
> Also watch me as I desperately search for ladies in positions of power


	6. First Meetings

Wrathion did not like the Blade’s Edge Mountains. You could almost say that they set him on edge, but you wouldn’t because that is a really terrible pun.

“Those are some big spikes.”

“Thank you, Anduin, I hadn’t noticed.”

“How do you think the dragons got up there?”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

They really were some very big spikes, though. Wrathion didn’t want to think about what kind of geographical mess the place is (it didn’t make sense, that’s not how earth worked, why was this planet so weird?) let alone the consequences of that. He spent a long year of his life committing genocide against the black dragonflight. The fact that someone beat him to it in a place where he didn’t even know had black dragons was oddly worrying.

The fact remained that there were a lot of spikes, and Wrathion liked his internal organs exactly that: internal.

“I hope some survived,” Anduin said quietly, his gaze on one of the impaled drakes.

Wrathion stiffened. “Are you mad?”

“No, and I don’t think they were either.”

He folded his arms and glared at Anduin, before sighing and shaking his head. “Prince Wrynn, you wouldn’t know madness if it hit you on the head and danced naked in front of you.”

Anduin was too busy giggling to protest, which was good, because Wrathion realised a little too late that that might have been a little too offensive for their tentative truce.

“I have to admit,” he said between chuckles, “that was not something I ever expected to come from your mouth.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Anduin pulled a face, and Wrathion smiled smugly, before the faint scent of blood caught his attention.

“Hold on one moment,” he said. “I smell blood.”

He started to go off to investigate, but suddenly Anduin grabbed the back of his tunic and tugged at him, effectively halting him in his tracks. He turned around and raised an eyebrow, more surprised at the contact than irritated by it.

“You do this every time, and it always ends up badly,” Anduin said firmly. “We are not following the suspicious blood trail straight into ogre lands. I’m serious.”

“As am I,” Wrathion replied. “Blood means action, and action means adventure.”

“Wrathion – ”

But he was already off, eager to search out whoever spilt the blood he was smelling. Ogres, by the looks of it, but one could never be too sure. There were always other races at play in any land, and while he doubted that the arakkoa would descend so far into the barren stretches of the mountains, there was always a chance.

They had come in through the tunnel at Orebor Harbourage, and man, did Wrathion hate spiders. And bats. He hated both, mostly because they got guano everywhere and that stuff _stunk._ Anduin hadn’t seemed to like it much more, and they were quick to run into the fresh, open air when the end of the tunnel came into sight.

Of course, that also meant that the mountains came into sight, massive spikes and all.

Thunderlord Stronghold was large and imposing and Wrathion rather liked it. As much as he preferred the Alliance – which was a very slim margin, and only because they appeared to have the upper hand most of the time – he sympathised with the Horde’s tactics and methods far more. At least they knew the effectiveness of war.

There hadn’t been much of a need for war lately, though, so his and Anduin’s progress down into the Boulderfist valley hadn’t been hindered, even though Anduin was very definitely human. Wrathion would have to think up a solution for that, when the time came.

He clambered over the rocks and stones, hiding behind the abandoned buildings and keeping an ear out for trouble. Anduin was trailing along behind him, wary but not visibly nervous. Ogres weren’t a great threat; Wrathion was confident in his ability to handle any that came his way. But whatever had killed those dragons above… that scared him.

There was a brief roaring sound, and Wrathion’s head shot up, just in time to see a burst of fire come from a little way ahead, and then a dark shape swoop overhead. It was unmistakeably a black dragon, and a big one at that; far larger than Wrathion could even hope to grow in the next few decades.

Then it sunk it.

_Black dragon._

Wrathion let out a truly creative stream of curses and dashed out, running after the dragon. Anduin tried to follow, but Wrathion wasn’t holding back this time in deference of Anduin’s temperamental leg. He outdistanced him quickly.

He’d killed all the black dragons years ago. He had lived and breathed and slept genocide, as macabre as that was; it had been his life goal for a solid portion of what constituted as his childhood. He knew the danger the black dragonflight posed to Azeroth. The idea that there were still dragons – old dragons, at that – on Outland was terrifying.

He ran out of the abandoned village and neared the Ring of Blood, an arena that one orc had been talking about at Thunderlord Stronghold. He couldn’t see the dragon anymore, but he couldn’t have gone that far. Although the scent was wafted about by the wind quite strongly, Wrathion could still smell him.

He whipped his head around, using as many senses as he could to locate the renegade dragon.

There! He could smell them from just around the side of the Ring of Blood. It was time to confront them.

Or, at least, it would have been, if Anduin hadn’t grabbed his elbow and hauled him back with an effort.

“Don’t!” he said sharply, and Wrathion was reminded for a split second of the priest who had stood up to the Burning Legion and won. The image disappeared quickly. “You don’t have your Blacktalons with you, what are you going to do if this goes sour?”

“Tactically retreat, I suspect. Now go bother someone else or stop hindering me. It’s important that I do this.” Wrathion narrowed his eyes at Anduin, who threw his hands in the air and let out an irritated huff.

“You are the most immature, _reckless – ”_

“And who would you be?”

Wrathion froze, and Anduin’s tirade was abruptly cut short at the deep, unfamiliar voice. The scent of dragon was almost overpowering.

He turned slowly to see a burly man in red and gold robes standing behind them, his arms crossed and shoulder leaning against one of the support posts for the arena. His eyes had a dull orange glow to them, and he looked part amused, part disgruntled. Wrathion got the vague impression that he had never been gruntled in the first place.

He regarded Wrathion unemotionally, then said, “You’re a long way from home.”

Wrathion drew himself up and straightened his turban. “As are you. I was not aware that the black dragonflight had taken up residence in Outland.”

“No, you wouldn’t. We’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive.” The man narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

“Wrathion, the Black Prince,” he said haughtily.

“I’ve been wondering whether you’d show your head. You’re smaller than I expected. Are the rumours true?”

“What about?”

The man tsked impatiently. “Don’t play stupid, it only wastes my time. About your genocidal spree. If you’re hoping to add me and my family to the list, don’t bother.”

“I did what I had to do for the safety of Azeroth.”

“Of which I am well aware,” he said, cutting Wrathion off. “I understand that and, I confess, have little feeling on the matter. What I am more interested in are your intentions towards me and mine.”

Wrathion hesitated. The dragon didn’t seem insane – he’d seen insanity, seen what it did to a dragon, and there was no sign of it in this one. Still… risks were unnecessary and intolerable. So was honesty. “You are safe until you prove yourself to be a threat.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or insulted,” he muttered under his breath, so quietly Wrathion barely caught it.

“Be relieved. I am a fair person.” The dragon gave him a flat look, and Wrathion shrugged. “Most of the time. When it suits me.”

“Truly a son of Deathwing. Go, little brother. Do not let me see you here again.”

Another son of Deathwing? Wrathion nearly froze up, before reminding himself to keep control and remain calm. “Do you have a name? I should tell my agents to avoid you.”

“Baron Sablemane will do,” the dragon – Sablemane – said, turning to leave. “These mountains are my territory. See that you don’t encroach it.”

This time, when Anduin tugged on his arm, Wrathion allowed himself to be led away.

* * *

 High Priestess Laurena enjoyed her job.

She had a genuine love for people, and latent maternal feelings that seemed to arise whenever someone was in need. She had once been a confessor, before her rise through the clergy, and was still willing to lend an ear to anyone who needed a listener, regardless of their faith.

She also knew a lot more than people gave her credit for.

She knew, for example, that Mathias Shaw had a thing for Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth. She also knew with utmost certainty that Jes-Tereth was seeing a devastatingly clever high elf sorceress, which would put a little bit of a damper on Shaw’s plans if he ever realised. Laurena knew that Lord Grayson sometimes moved his eye patch over to freak people out. She knew King Varian almost certainly had some form of depression, which had only been exacerbated by Prince Wrynn’s death.

She knew, with a vague sense of guilt, that Anduin was almost certainly alive.

What many people tended to forget about Laurena was that she had not gotten to her status in the Church of the Light through philosophy and kind words. She was a powerful priestess in her own right, connected to the Light in ways that few understood unless they themselves wielded that kind of power. She felt the ebb and flow of the Light’s graces, and she felt it when someone connected to the Light passed over to join it.

Anduin had not.

Of course, she wasn’t about to mention this to anyone, simply because she had no tangible proof and no intention of raising anyone’s hopes only to dash them again. King Varian was at a precarious point. While normally she would encourage the gift of hope, she knew that Varian was unlikely to survive having that hope taken away once again.

Besides, she knew that Anduin was a good man. If he wasn’t returning to Stormwind, it was for a good reason. And, she admitted to herself, if ever he were to go into hiding, now would be the wisest time to do it.

“Copper for your thoughts?”

She looked up to see Lord Grayson smiling at her. “Just thinking about Anduin.”

Grayson sighed and sat down. “Actually, I have something I ought to tell you. The meeting I went to last week, it was about the Prince. He’s… Laurena, he’s still alive. One of Andromath’s mages saw him in Shattrath.”

Laurena let out a relieved sigh. “Thank the Light.”

Grayson was more perceptive than she gave him credit for, as he narrowed his eyes then snorted. “You already knew.”

“Yes. Our connection to the Light meant that I would have been able to feel his death.” She closed her eyes and sent a prayer up to the Light. “I’m so glad he didn’t.”

“Where do you think he is? Still on Outland?”

“It’s difficult to say.” She rubbed an eye then looked over at him. “Say, did you get into contact with Michelle de Beau?”

Grayson shook his head. “No, not yet. We don’t know where she is, but we have adventurers out searching. It would be so much easier if Tiffin were here.”

Laurena remembered Tiffin Wrynn with fondness. She had been rough around the edges, both from her rural upbringing and the natural paladin-esque bluntness, but she had a heart of gold and a smile wider than Lake Everstill. Her left hook had also been particularly famous.

Varian had clearly loved her very much. It was deplorable what had happened to her.

“Hey.” She felt a hand on her shoulder, and Grayson gave her a smile. “Everyone will be okay. You don’t have to worry so much. You’ll get grey hairs.”

She stifled a laugh and he grinned wider. Although she was nearing fifty, her hair was still as blonde as it had been when she was a child.

“Lord Shadowbreaker!”

They both looked up just in time to see a dwarf in battered plate come running up to them, waving a missive in one hand. She had a well-worn mithril hammer and had all the markings of an adventurer. “Lord Shadowbreaker, I have the information you wanted. Michelle de Beau, currently goin’ as Michelle Belle, is a physician in Goldshire. She’s not ten miles from here.”

“Goldshire?” Laurena whipped to face Grayson. “Why, she’s been here the entire time!”

Grayson stood and stretched. “Well, we’d best go and see her as fast as possible. Are you coming?”

Laurena blinked, before realising that he was asking her, not the dwarf. “I don’t know…”

“You need to get out, relax. Take some of the trouble off your shoulders. Anduin’s alive, it’s been confirmed.” He snorted. “Kid was always pretty tough when it came down to it. Come on, you’ll like Michelle, she’s quite a character. Not so different from her student, come to think of it.”

Laurena hesitated for a moment, then stood, brushed down her dress, and nodded. “Alright. Thank you.”

“Thank Mirtalla,” said Grayson, clapping the adventurer on the shoulder in thanks. “She did all the work. Here, for your troubles.”

Mirtalla took the offered coin, bowed to them both, then left. Grayson offered his arm to Laurena, and with matching smiles, they followed suit.

* * *

“Did you really think I would be stupid enough to fall for that?”

Wrathion froze in his tracks. He had been attempting to sneak out of their campsite without Anduin knowing, intending to scout out Baron Sablemane and do something about the threat he posed, but apparently his steps hadn’t been light enough, as Anduin was sitting up on his bedroll with his arms folded. His expression read: take one more step and I smite you six ways to Sunday.

“I… had hoped.”

Anduin sighed and rubbed at his eyes tiredly. Wrathion actually felt a little guilt at waking him. “What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? Baron Sablemane isn’t some young dragon that you can outsmart. He’s older than you, smarter than you, stronger than you. You don’t have your Blacktalons. You don’t have Left and Right. What are you intending to get done?”

Having it laid out like that gave Wrathion pause, but not for long. “I’ll think of something. Go back to sleep.”

“This isn’t like you.”

“How would you know? People change over the years. Surely this isn’t surprising.”

“So you became masochistic and thoughtless?” Anduin leant forward, and Wrathion crossed his arms. “Where’s the dragon that spent half his time trying to plan the future? Where’s the dragon that knew the importance of a plan? Did he disappear along with Kairoz?”

Wrathion sniffed. “Perhaps I just realised the importance of keeping an enemy on their toes.”

“I sincerely doubt Baron Sablemane cares enough about you to try to predict your actions.”

“Let’s see, shall we?”

* * *

 “Hold _still,_ will you?”

“It hurts!”

“Of course it hurts, now stop wriggling or else I’ll pull it too tight, and it will hurt more.”

“Can’t you do some, I don’t know, magic priesty stuff and make it all better?”

Anduin pursed his lips together and tugged at the bandage he was trying to wrap around Wrathion’s arm. Wrathion was not enjoying the process; it turns out, dragons do not enjoy being crept up on in the night and often respond with colourful pyrotechnics.

“I’m not wasting energy healing something that could teach you a useful lesson in thinking,” Anduin said, tying off the bandage and withdrawing his hands quickly. “Does it hurt anywhere else?”

“No,” Wrathion said, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, smoke curling out from between his lips. “Thank you.”

“Just… learn your lesson, okay? Don’t go after people bigger and stronger than you without thinking.” Anduin crossed his legs and eyes Wrathion with something close to worry. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

“What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine.”

“You simply saying that makes me worried,” he replied, before yawning hugely. He blushed and covered his mouth, looking away. “Sorry. It’s late.”

“Go to sleep. I promise I won’t try to go kill dragons while you’re out.”

Anduin watched him for a second, and Wrathion met his eyes squarely, trying to convey honesty where there was little, and thanks where there was also awkwardness.

“You sleep too,” Anduin finally said, before moving over to his bedroll and rolling over, hiding his face from the firelight.

Wrathion remained awake for a long while, thinking and planning. Without his Blacktalons, he was limited in what he could and couldn’t do. In all honesty, there wasn’t much he _could_ do, simply because his idea of a plan was so long reaching that it involved many more gears than just himself.

He also didn’t have a need for a plan. With the Burning Legion defeated, there was nothing on the horizon that needed his attention, other than the general safety of Azeroth. He wasn’t used to being able to do whatever he liked, without a crisis looming over his head. The feeling was foreign, alien, and altogether new.

He wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not.

Maybe… maybe it was time to abandon action. Maybe he didn’t need to be constantly productive and protective and other adjectives beginning with p. He could enjoy this little road trip, do all the things he’d missed out from the childhood he’d never had. Like ice cream. That had been fun.

He lay down on his back and looked up at the sky. Outland’s twin moons were circling, and he could see the stars.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he said quietly. Anduin let out a little snore in response, and he laughed, glancing over at him before looking up at the sky again. It was dark, comforting in its infinity. The universe wouldn’t care if he spent the next year doing stupid things with a naïve, amusing blond prince. The universe wouldn’t care if he did nothing but eat ice cream for the rest of his life. The universe was comforting like that.

When he woke up, Anduin was cooking something over the campfire while reading a book, using his cane as a prop to jiggle the pot around. Anduin looked up as Wrathion levered himself vertical, and smiled slightly.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked. “If you’re not up for travelling very far I’ve found a few stopovers that could be okay.”

“I’m fine.” Wrathion sniffed and peered into the pot. “What’s in there?”

“Just soup. Sorry. I’m not a great cook.”

“It’s still food.” He sighed and sat back down. His arms were killing him.

They sat in silence for a while until Anduin judged the soup edible, at which he dug some bowls out of the depths of his bag – Wrathion wasn’t even sure when he’d bought them, which showed how much attention he was paying to his companion – and tossed him one. “Here. It’s just vegetables but it’ll fill you up.”

“Nothing poisonous?”

“Yes, Wrathion,” he said with a grin. “I am actively trying to poison you so I can steal your riches and live in a mansion on Kezan.”

Wrathion grinned and felt a rise of an odd feeling in his chest. He didn’t have a word for it, but it felt like what Left called friendship, so he called it that.

“I could buy you a beachfront property in Kezan without you having to kill me for it,” he said amicably. “I hear they’re going cheap these days.”

“Particularly with such a stunning natural attraction right behind.” Anduin smiled into his bowl. “I can’t imagine why no one wants them.”

“Why not just buy the whole island? No irritating neighbours, and we could jack the rent up on the ones we don’t want and make a fortune.”

“Or, you could go back and apologise to Tong for putting him out of business.”

Wrathion waved him off. “I took care of that.”

He had, actually. He believed in paying off his debts. Tong had found a solid wooden chest in the attic of the inn with several property deeds and a bag or two of precious gems that should have set him up wherever he had desired. Wrathion had appreciated his service and made sure to reward that.

They chattered as they ate, and Wrathion offered to fly off to find somewhere to wash the bowls. Anduin shot that idea down quickly, pointing out – not entirely unreasonably – that Wrathion was still mildly injured and shape shifting would only make it worse.

“I think we should move on,” Anduin said as they were packing up. “I don’t want you staying here and trying to murder more dragons.”

“I’ve learnt that lesson, you can stop rubbing it in now.”

“I hope you like purple, then.”

* * *

“Michelle?”

Michelle Belle looked up at Innkeeper Farley, who shifted in his stance a little at her stare. “Yes?”

“There are two people here to see you,” he said, glancing back at the doorway nervously.

Josetta straightened from where she was pouring over a text and smiled brightly at Michelle. “That’s great! Maybe you’ll finally see some friends or family again!”

“Calm down, kid, I doubt it. Unless a bunch of undead have come to send their regards.” She got up and brushed down her skirt. “Thanks, Farley. I’ll be down.”

“I’m sure they’re coming with good news,” said Josetta solemnly. “You just need to keep an open mind once in a while.”

“Yeah, sure.” Michelle softened her words with a nod and wandered downstairs to see who on Azeroth could know who she was. Other than the locals and her first aid students, no one knew her. She’d made damn sure of that. No sense in retiring if you were going to have people chase you down to go kill Scourge, which was the trouble with being a paladin. Everyone seemed to think that you had some kind of vendetta against the undead, and would jump at the chance to go kill some more. Quite the contrary; Michelle would like nothing better than to live her days out in Goldshire, teaching young adventurers how not to die and sampling Tomas’ culinary adventures.

Farley gestured her over to a table in the corner, where she saw with a sinking feeling that a very familiar face was drinking tea with another woman.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, sighing and dropping down into the free chair. “I knew you’d find me eventually.”

“Michelle,” said Grayson Shadowbreaker, paladin of the Silver Hand. His eye patch was on the wrong eye. “It’s lovely to see you again. How are you?”

“Enjoying retirement,” she said, giving him a pointed look. “And who are you?”

“Laurena,” said the other woman, who looked around Michelle’s age. “High Priestess of the Cathedral of Light.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Michelle sighed and accepted the cup Grayson offered her. It was dwarfed by his large hands, and the image almost made her smile. “What do you want with me? I’m quite happy being a physician here, you know.”

“I understand,” Grayson said. “We’ve come to ask a favour.”

“You’ve probably heard the news,” Laurena said quietly, and Michelle sized her up thoughtfully. She was pretty in a conventional sense, with kind eyes. Michelle decided that she liked her. The world needed more kind people. “About the prince, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Michelle looked down at her cup. “It’s a damn shame. He seemed like a smart kid.”

“He was.” Laurena hesitated. “Between us, King Wrynn isn’t taking the loss so well. We – that is, Grayson and I – would like you to speak with him. You trained Queen Tiffin, you might have a bit more to offer than us.”

“I’ve never spoken to the king in my life.”

Grayson shook his head. “That’s not the point. You have a… forceful personality. We think you may be able to help him in ways we can’t.”

“I’m a crotchety old lady, you mean.”

Grayson’s mouth twitched. “That, too. You’re a person who doesn’t want anything from him. He has nothing to offer you, so you don’t have a reason to suck up to him. Laurena and I, we do, and he might take our concern the wrong way.”

“Does he know about this?”

That was the big question. Michelle was a physician and a paladin; she knew the importance of both the physical and the mental. Some problems, like grief, couldn’t be solved through attacking the problem head on. It was about the grieving process, about having a support network that you could rely on. She had come to learn that through losing her protégé. It sounded like King Wrynn needed a reminder, and if he didn’t know that he had people who were looking out for him, then maybe he needed to learn.

“No. We thought it best not to tell him, lest he take it the wrong way.” Laurena leaned forward. “Michelle, please. I’m worried for him, and with Anduin gone, I don’t want him to slip back into his depression. He needs to learn how to grieve healthily. I thought… well, I thought you might be the one to teach him.”

“You can teach people how to grieve, girl. You can only help them realise it themselves.”

Laurena’s lip twitched. “No one’s called me girl in thirty years.”

“Well, you’d better start getting used to it. Is there space in the Cathedral District to host a crotchety old paladin?”

“You’ll come?” Grayson asked, leaning forward like an excited puppy.

“Yes. My duty to the king and country, and all that.” Michelle sipped her tea and watched with amusement as Laurena and Grayson exchanged ecstatic smiles. “Don’t get too excited.”

Grayson patted her on the hand and gave her a relieved smile, moving the eye patch back over the right eye. It was positively unnerving having a scarred socket stare at you, but she had long since figured out that Grayson could see through the eye patch. For a paladin, he had an odd sense of humour. Admittedly, she too was a paladin and not much better, so she didn’t fault him.

“How long will you stay in Stormwind?”

“Until I’ve helped the king as much as he’ll let me. If he doesn’t want me to help him, or he’s alright on his own, I’ll come back here. But I expect recompense.”

“Of course,” Laurena said. “You’ve retired. It’s unfair of us to ask this of you. But we are terribly concerned about King Varian, and you’re both connected to him – albeit vaguely – and versed in healing. Thank you so much.”

Michelle packed her bags quickly, and left back to Stormwind with Laurena and Grayson. They had brought two horses, but Laurena informed her with a laugh that she couldn’t ride to save her life, and had rode behind Grayson for the ride to Goldshire. Michelle hadn’t rode a horse in years, but it was a difficult skill to forget, and within minutes she was happily settling into the saddle and grinning slightly as it pranced around.

Stormwind’s gates were as imposing as ever. The damage Deathwing had done all those years ago had been repaired well, it seemed. Even the Trias’ shop had a new signboard on it, which amused Michelle to no end given the rather stingy nature of the newest generation of the Trias family.

“We would have you meet with King Wrynn as soon as possible, if that’s alright with you,” Grayson said, drawing his horse to a stop on the boulevard surrounding the Trade District.

Michelle nodded. “Lead the way.”

* * *

 Wrathion didn’t realise that he hated the colour purple until he was surrounded by it.

They had made it to Area 52 by nightfall, and had collapsed in the inn wearily. It turned out that the Scryers and Aldor were biting each other’s heads off still, and Wrathion had quickly developed a headache from their bickering. He had paid the local bruisers good money to move the Shattrath ambassadors to a different building, and it had absolutely been worth it.

Honestly, he’d thought that after Kael’thas’ defeat, the factions would have settled their differences, but no. Too ingrained. Mortals were dumb.

Anduin had buried himself underneath the blankets as soon as peace had been wrangled, and all that remained was a tiny puff of blonde peeking out from the cocoon.

“Anduin? Are you going to eat?” he asked, moving over and poking what he presumed was a shoulder with his spoon.

“No, thanks.” Anduin’s voice was strong, but there was a faint waver in it that made Wrathion curious. He also had yet to turn to face him.

“Are you… okay?”

Anduin let out a heavy sigh and rolled onto his back, dropping his forearm over his eyes. “Yeah, just a little homesick.”

“Ah.” Wrathion sat down on the edge of the bed, perching next to Anduin’s hip. “Do you… want to talk? Is that something you do?”

Anduin’s mouth twitched into a smile, and Wrathion smirked. He wasn’t too bad at this friendship thing. Maybe Anduin had been right, and their old camaraderie was salvageable. “Yes, Wrathion, talking is a thing I do. But I’m okay. Or, I’ll be okay. I just worry, you know?”

“Stormwind isn’t your responsibility, yet,” Wrathion said. “When your father’s no longer king, then yes. But for now, you are a prince, and the state has no need for you as it is no longer at war. Responsibility is one thing. Taking a break is another.”

“But what about Father? I worry about him even when we’re together. Which,” he added with a little snort, “is not often, but I still do.”

“King Varian can take care of himself for a while. Besides, I made you a promise. I intend to keep it. Also, you need to relax.”

Anduin moved his arm to look at Wrathion incredulously. “You’re telling _me_ to relax? You realise the irony?”

“Yes, yes, laugh while you can, monkey boy.” Wrathion waved it off. “The point still stands.”

Anduin heaved a breath, and Wrathion tentatively placed a hand on his elbow. “Yeah. Thanks, Wrathion.”

“You’re welcome, my friend.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and ye shall receive. 
> 
> Massive break due to exams and whatnot. November is not a good month. 
> 
> Alternate title: Wrathion is not a Happy Bunny and side characters are fun. (If you can't tell by now, I have an irrational fondness for priests of all kinds. Paladins, not so much, but I try. Especially if it involves Tiffin Wrynn.)
> 
> ((On an unrelated note, Five Times hit 60 kudos! Thank you, faceless internet strangers! You make me smile stupidly at inopportune times.))


	7. Revelations

“So, what do people normally do when they’re on holiday?” Wrathion asked, looking with barely concealed interest at the strange rocket being built in the middle of Area-52. Anduin wondered why the goblins had called it Area-52, and if there were fifty-one other areas of note that had also been built. Knowing goblins, probably not.

“I don’t know.” Anduin thought about it. He’d often heard his father groan and sigh he wanted a holiday to Stranglethorn once in a while, but Varian hadn’t said anything about what he wanted to do there. The general idea of holidays was to do very little of anything, but that sounded rather boring to Anduin. “The nature domes look interesting. We could investigate them?”

Wrathion shrugged. “A good idea as any. I’ve heard there are ethereals there who may be interested in trade deals.”

“You are incorrigible.”

Anduin took another sip of his drink. The waitress had put an umbrella in it. It wasn’t a cocktail umbrella; it was a fully functional one made from stretched rubber, and it looked as though it had a retractable handle. Goblins were a funny folk.

He wondered how his father was doing.

“I’m confused,” said Wrathion eventually. “Why are they building a rocket in the first place?”

“That is a question better asked of the engineers.” Anduin finished his drink and stood, brushing down his pants. Somehow, they had already got purple dust on them. “Are you finished?”

Wrathion drained the rest of his tea and nodded, giving a small wave to the waitress to indicate that they were leaving. Anduin stretched his leg, picked up his staff, and went to ask for the safest route to the eco-domes.

A cheerful goblin gave him some very confusing directions, then offered to sell him a map for ten gold. Anduin just smiled, took out his own, and ran a pencil along the route suggested. The goblin looked a little downcast at that, but offered to sell him another, better pencil for half the price. Anduin thanked him and moved on.

“I appreciate goblins,” said Wrathion as they left Area-52. “I don’t like them, but they’ll do anything when money is involved. It makes life so much easier.”

“I find their attitude mildly worrying,” Anduin admitted. “But I have met several goblins whose ideas were refreshingly innovative, and I’m not about to hold their stereotypes against them. It seems a little hypocritical.”

“Everything is hypocritical when religion is involved.”

Anduin sighed. He had long ago given up on convincing Wrathion of religion’s authenticity – whatever religion it may be – but the casual disrespect Wrathion showed often grated on his nerves. He was not stupid enough to get into an argument over it, though. There were some debates that would be doomed from the beginning.

Perhaps he would have more luck convincing Wrathion about philosophies.

One of the great manaforges loomed ahead, and Anduin shuddered. Although it had been many, many years since Kael’thas and his Blood Elves had been in Netherstorm, the idea of them still scared him. To fall so far into addiction that summoning demon lords became a good idea? That truly terrified him. Arcane magic had an allure to it that Anduin had often heard debated among the mages of the Mystic Ward of Ironforge, but he had sometimes wondered if perhaps divine magic could have the same effects. Power addiction was common enough. Did it matter where that power came from? Shadow magic could be divine in origin, after all.

“Where are your thoughts taking you this time, Anduin?”

He looked over and smiled at Wrathion, who had been studying the landscape and clearly decided that a never-ending panorama of purple was not his cup of tea. “Nowhere interesting to you. Are you truly interested in the eco-domes? It really doesn’t seem like something you’d find interesting.”

“I find it fascinating that they have managed to reinstate the original flora and fauna of the land through technological means,” said Wrathion seriously. Anduin liked it when Wrathion talked about botany. It was a strange quirk of his that didn’t fit the persona he had built for strangers, but he was evidently very passionate about it and highly educated. “When I was in the original Draenor, I saw many beautiful places, and always wondered what Outland would look like. To some extent, it saddens me. But at the same time, it serves as a pertinent reminder of what can be done to a planet if enough stress is applied to it.”

“Wouldn’t Azeroth operate differently, though?”

“Oh, certainly. But all case studies are relative.”

“Do you…” Anduin hesitated. “Do you ever think of pursuing this interest? In botany and geology, I mean.”

“No, I’m far too busy to…”

Wrathion trailed off, eyes growing thoughtful. Anduin left him to think.

The bridges that connected the loose chunks of land together seemed awfully creaky. Anduin nudged one bit of looser stone and it toppled off the side, disappearing into the Twisting Nether.

Well. At least he had a dragon with him.

“So, what’s this one called?” asked Wrathion when they came to a stop in front of the first dome.

“Er…” Anduin swung his pack over his shoulder and began rooting through it for his map, until Wrathion let out a little snort and batted his hands away. He fished out the map quickly and flipped through to Netherstorm. “Eco-dome Midrealm. Look, it connects to the Stormspire too.”

Wrathion looked up. “Neat.”

Anduin held back a laugh and tugged the map from Wrathion’s grip, but Wrathion refused to give it up and poked his tongue out when Anduin rolled his eyes. In the end, he kept the map. Anduin couldn’t be bothered to fight him on it.

Eco-dome Midrealm seemed like the kind of place that picnics happened. He said as much.

Wrathion nodded, his finger coming to tap his chin. His goatee suited his face better now that he was older, Anduin noted idly. He looked less like someone trying to appear older than he was and more like someone comfortable in his own presence. A mildly intimidating presence, to be fair, but Anduin still remembered the eccentric whelp Wrathion had been, so it lost a lot of its power.

He looked away. Wrathion was a different person now. Someone who was agreeable, and slightly more mature, but not someone Anduin could trust. Picnics or no picnics.

“Alright,” Wrathion said, breaking through Anduin’s thoughts. “Let’s.”

They found a spot away from the Consortium outpost and out of the way of most of the wildlife. A few lynxes gave them dirty looks, but Wrathion bared his teeth at them and they slunk away.

“Nagrand was nicer,” Wrathion said bluntly, brushing his jacket out of the way as he sat down on a particularly soft patch of grass. “More sun.”

“This is nice too. Besides, aren’t you even a little bit curious about the technology of the eco-domes?”

“Only a little.”

Anduin smirked and dropped down, stretching and rubbing his leg gratefully. The grass was soft and the jungle around them pleasantly warm.

He found himself dozing in and out of sleep, woken occasionally by the pain in his leg and Wrathion poking him to tell him about some exciting new thing he had discovered. Wrathion seemed to enjoy looking around the small dome and fiddling with the technology.

Finally, a startlingly sharp stab of pain made Anduin sit up properly and roll up his trouser leg, biting his lip and frowning. It hadn’t hurt this much this morning.

Dark lines spiralled out from the wound, where the Legion’s fel magic had infected his veins. Upon peering closer, he realised it had got into one of the veins that lead up his leg, and was probably spreading. It was almost as if the poison was moving steadily upwards.

He had been using healing magic on it since he had been hit, and it had been slowly receding, but at some point this morning it must have moved to the wrong vein and spread. All his slow progress had been for nothing.

He shut his eyes, let out a slow breath, and tried to channel holy magic again.

Slowly, sluggishly, the Light responded, until his hands were glowing and tracing the wound. The poison must be inhibiting his capacity to channel healing magic, he realised with a start, almost losing his concentration. That was why he had been finding it harder to heal recently.

The blackness in his veins drew back very slightly, but with growing nervousness he noticed that the epicentre of the wound seemed to be getting darker. He moved his hands to try to purge the fel magic from the source, but nothing happened.

“What is _that?!”_

His concentration shattered, the Light disappeared, and he looked up to see Wrathion staring at his leg. Anduin couldn’t quite read his expression. It was surprised, and concerned, but there was a depth to it that he couldn’t plumb.

“It’s my leg,” he said, defaulting back to the obvious.

“I know, but what’s that?” Wrathion pointed at the blackness and knelt beside Anduin. “Is that from the Legion?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I had it under control!”

“Clearly not!” Wrathion shook his head, and poked Anduin’s leg abruptly. Anduin yelped and drew it back, glaring at him. “What is it?”

Letting go of his indignation, Anduin hazarded a guess. “The last pit lord sent a bolt of fel magic at me. That’s why I fell off the cliff; it hit my knee and sent me backwards. I think it was some kind of poison, and I had it under control until it got into a larger vein.”

“What are you going to do about it? Why haven’t you healed it yet?”

“Because I can’t! This much fel magic in me blocks my connection to healing magic. I think it’s the binary opposition.”

“Big words from someone being poisoned.” Wrathion waved a dismissive hand when Anduin opened his mouth to scold him. “Hush. I’m not trying to be rude. How bad is it?”

“Not that bad. I just worry that it will get worse.”

Wrathion sighed and sat back, and gave Anduin a piercing look. “This is going to be a repeating motif in our friendship, isn’t it?”

“You do plenty of ridiculous stunts yourself.”

“I suppose so. Come on, we’re going to find an Anchorite, and you are going to accept their help, regardless of whatever notion of altruism you may subscribe to.”

They both agreed that there would probably be someone who could help at the Stormspire, and if there wasn’t then Wrathion could sweet talk the Ethereals into telling them who could. As much as Wrathion hated gryphon rides – which he did, and he told Anduin so quite vehemently – he would even agree to taking a flight somewhere close by if it meant getting that damn poison out of Anduin’s leg.

It was kind of sweet, in a mildly bossy way.

The bridge to the Stormspire was just as rickety as Anduin had feared, but the twin eco-domes themselves were so incredibly beautiful that they made up for it. The sheer size was incredible. Wrathion was already marvelling about the biodiversity and the geological structure of the earth beneath them. Anduin almost thought Wrathion had forgotten about him completely, when Wrathion grabbed his elbow and began pointing at things like an excited child.

 “They’ve even adjusted the humidity! What strange technology! I wonder if they would consider selling me some. They did seem to be wonderfully open minded individuals, and so much smarter than the goblins.”

“That’s not fair, goblins are some of the world’s greatest inventors.”

“Anduin, I would trust a gnome more than I would trust a goblin to do _anything._ ”

Anduin rolled his eyes and surreptitiously leant on his staff as Wrathion paused to peer at a nearby stone. His upper thigh was starting to ache, and his toes were going oddly numb. It hadn’t reached dangerous levels yet, though, and he felt strangely removed from it.

“It would be so much easier if you actually spoke up, you know,” Wrathion commented as he turned back to Anduin and began prodding him towards the lift up to the Stormspire. “I’m not completely blind, and even if I were, I wouldn’t be helpless. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Anduin said, shifting to stand on his good leg as the lift began to rise smoothly. “I don’t tell people much of anything anymore.”

“I know.” Wrathion pursed his lips and looked away. He seemed to know where Anduin’s thoughts were going, but he didn’t apologise. Anduin hadn’t expected him to.

* * *

 “Nelphi, you know how I feel about this.”

“Of course, Lady Jaina, but I also know what I saw. I promise, if it turns out I’m mistaken, I’ll return soon. Besides, Andromath does have a point. No one stopped to think about the possibility of working ley-lines in Outland.”

Jaina sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Her grief had left a visible toll on her, Nelphi noted with sympathy. But she also recognised the tiny spark of hope at the back of Jaina’s eyes. “Very well. I assign you with a brief investigation into the ‘possibility of working ley-lines’. You are to report back to the Kirin Tor once any suspicions have either been confirmed or laid to rest. You are not to let Varian hear of this, understood? Giving him hope again and then stealing it away would shatter him irrevocably.”

“Yes, Archmage. I swear you won’t regret this.”

With a final bow to Jaina, she focused and teleported to Shattrath.

Nelphi Cannon was a special agent of the Kirin Tor. She had been one of Jaina’s few apprentices, and only last year had she become a fully-fledged mage. Because of her close relationship with Jaina, she had become something of a go-between for the mages of the Alliance and the Kirin Tor, as Jaina was far too busy to worry about petty squabbles and passing messages.

Shattrath was quiet when she teleported in, and her arrival was only met with nods from nearby Peacekeepers.

She had managed to glean some clues from the brief glance of Anduin and the Black Prince she had seen two weeks ago. They were battered and looked a little tired, so clearly they had only just arrived in Shattrath. The Last Stand had been a week prior to that, and it didn’t take that long to fly to Shattrath, so they must have been exploring or otherwise occupying their time. She wasn’t sure what that heralded for the success of her mission.

All she could deduce at this point was that there was a high chance they were still in Outland.

“A’dal,” she said, approaching the great naaru and bowing. “Can I speak to you?”

_Of course. What is it that concerns you?_

Focusing her thoughts, she directed them straight to A’dal. _I was wondering if you spoke with a man two weeks ago, yay high, blond hair, wearing a black and red tabard with a long scarf around his neck?_

She got the distinct impression that A’dal was smiling, if a primordial being of pure Light energy could smile. _Ah, yes. I did indeed. Are you a relation of his?_

She laughed aloud and then covered her mouth with a hand, blushing deep red. _No, no, not at all. I’m just trying to give a message to him. Do you know where he was going?_

_He told me that he was searching for information about the Broken. He came to ask my wisdom on the matter, and I could tell him little. I suggested he visit Auchindoun. I should look there, were I you._

_Thank you very much._

_Blessings be upon you, child._

No one had called Nelphi a child in a fair while, but she let it slide. After all, A’dal was pretty old. He was probably getting a little weird in his old age.

_Also, I am not ‘getting weird’. Do not be so unthinking._

She bowed again and bid a hasty retreat.

“Hey, Nutral, long time no see,” she said, skipping over to the flight master for Shattrath City. The large Draenei looked over to her and smiled slightly, waving her over.

“Do you have any spare gryphons I could commandeer for a day or two?”

He frowned at her and stroked his beard. “Well, I certaintly have gryphons to spare, but what exactly do you mean when you say ‘commandeer’?”

“I’m looking for my little brother, he’s gone missing since the Last Stand. Twit’s probably got himself lost.” She bit her lip. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Nutral gave her a sympathetic look and patted her on the shoulder. “Of course. You must be terribly distressed. Here, Ishaia’s a good beast, she’ll do as you direct.”

Nelphi smiled at him, brushed a lock of golden brown hair behind her ear, and blew him a kiss. “Thanks, you’re a sweetheart. See you in a week!”

With a bright laugh, she swung herself onto the gryphon and launched into the air.

Her first trip was towards Allerian Stronghold. If Anduin had visited Auchindoun, then he would have needed to stop somewhere afterwards. Allerian Stronghold was Alliance, Anduin was technically supposed to be Alliance (even if he did despair of the faction divide), so it was the logical conclusion.

“I’m so smart,” she said to Ishaia, patting her feathers. “I should have applied for SI:7.”

Ishaia let out an unimpressed squawk.

“You’ll grow to love me.”

She leant back, feeling the wind in her hair, and staring up at the sky. It was very clear today, and she could see the sun slowly inching towards the horizon. Depending on how fast Ishaia could fly, she may be able to find Anduin by sunrise tomorrow.

At least, that was the hope. If he was travelling with the Black Prince, as Nelphi suspected he was, then it was probably going to be much harder to track them. Not only was Wrathion famous for being underhanded and cunning, but he was also unpredictable. She didn’t want to cross him, and she didn’t really even want to meet him.

Ishaia coasted a little lower, so that she was gliding just above the tree tops, and Nelphi leant over to swipe at one of the nearby leaves. They were softer than they looked, but still a little brittle in her fingers. The psychometric imprint left on them was painful to the touch, and she ripped her hand away, wincing at the images. Auchindoun was not a pretty place, it seemed.

Her sister would probably be scolding her by now. Stealing a gryphon under false pretences, getting peoples’ hopes up with little proof, thinking she was cleverer than she really was; it was all stuff she’d heard before. But she couldn’t help it. She knew what she saw, and she definitely saw Anduin. She was Lady Jaina Proudmoore’s apprentice for the Light’s sake. Anduin popped in and out of Theramore a hell of a lot when he was a young teenager.

Ishaia twisted her head around to side-eye Nelphi, and she got the distinct feeling that she was being judged.

“Shut up. If you want responsible and mature you go to Jennea, everyone knows that.”

She was _not_ jealous of her sister. She _wasn’t._

“Oh, here’s Allerian Stronghold. Down we go, that’s a girl. Okay, okay, o-shit!”

Nelphi was not good at landing gryphons.

She brushed her robes down, straightened her hair, and put on her best charming smile before striding in through the gates.

A very attractive Night Elf with dark blue hair was happy to answer her questions. “Yes, about a week and a half ago we did have two travellers arrive here. One was ill, something to do with psychic overload, I think. It was quite a scare, it’s usually pretty quiet around here nowadays.”

“That sounds awful. What happened to them?”

“They stayed for a few days then headed towards Shadowmoon. I don’t know what happened after.” She gave Nelphi a shrewd look. “Why so curious?”

“My brother went missing after the Last Stand,” she said, deciding to recycle the same cover. “I’m actually a researcher for the Kirin Tor, but I thought I’d do a little work on the side, see if I can find him.”

The Night Elf nodded. “I can see a small resemblance, perhaps. Elune knows I look nothing like my sister, though, so I can’t judge. I hope you find him.”

Nelphi grinned cheerfully. “Thanks for your help. Oh, and you said someone was with him?”

“Yes, another human man. He was very distinctive. Dark brown skin, loose turban, some sort of dragonscale armour. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

Nelphi frowned. “I see. Well, thanks anyway. See you ‘round.”

She gave the Elf a wink, and then slipped back to where Ishaia was impatiently scratching at the ground.

“Well,” she said, hauling herself up into the saddle, “at least we know where they went.”

It was going to be a long ride.

* * *

Varian Wrynn was not a happy man.

It was difficult not to be unhappy when you were dealt his lot in life, but previously he had always been able to rise above it and cherish the truly good things he had in life. His friendships, Tiffin and Anduin, a growing economy and happier population. He used to be able to look at himself and say, “I have people I need to remember. They need me. I can be happy for them.”

He’d tried so hard to be happy for them that he forgot how to be happy for himself.

The stack of reports on his desk didn’t seem so important after half a bottle of wine. They were just words on paper. Whether or not he read them wouldn’t change the fact that in the end he was going to sign them, so he may as well not waste the effort and just put his pen to the paper and throw it at an advisor later.

The sunlight filtering in through the window highlighted the blood red of the wine and the emerald green of the bottle.

There were pictures on the edge of his desk, pushed to one side but still determinedly remaining on the tabletop. A portrait of Tiffin, with her hair thrown over a shoulder and her entire body leaning to one side as she rested her elbow on her giant war hammer. She had the same smile as Anduin, who was in a portrait next to that one. The painter had captured him perfectly, right down to the little freckles on his cheeks and the lingering sadness in his eyes. He smiled at the viewer, though, as if inviting them into his joy.

There was a family portrait there, too. Varian had received it as a missive from an anonymous painter several years ago, and hadn’t the heart to throw it away. It was a portrait of him, Tiffin, and Anduin, as if Tiffin were still alive. It was a happy family that had only ever existed in Varian’s dreams, and looking at it evoked feelings of love and loss in equal measure.

It hurt to look at them, now, but Varian took a measure of masochistic pleasure in it.

He sighed and swirled the wine around in the glass. His pen rested loosely in his free hand. He was going to go back to reading petitions, he really was, but he just needed to finish this glass first. And maybe the bottle, too. No sense doing half a job.

A knock on the door surprised him out of his reverie, and he looked up. “Yes?”

The hinges squeaked when the guard poked his head in. “Your majesty, Lord Shadowbreaker and High Priestess Royston are here to see you. They have brought a guest as well. Shall I admit them or have them schedule an appointment?”

Varian sighed and pushed back his chair. “Let them in. It wouldn’t be polite to keep them waiting.”

Besides, Grayson was a good man and Laurena seemed very kind. Their guest must be someone similar.

Lord Grayson came in first, striding through with calm self-assurance. An older woman with frown lines followed him, and Varian’s eyes flicked over her in quiet curiousity. He didn’t recognise her, but she was built like a retired warrior. When she reached for a chair, he noticed she had physician’s hands.

Laurena followed them through the door and shut it gently behind her. “Good afternoon, your majesty. Please forgive our intrusion. I promise we will not be here overlong.”

He shook his head. “It is no trouble. Take a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Grayson?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a glass of wine.”

“If he is, I will too,” said the stranger, and Varian fetched two more glasses and opened another bottle.

They seated themselves in front of Varian’s desk, and he returned to sit behind it. “May I know your name, ma’am?”

“Michelle de Beau, physician and retired paladin.” She gave him a brief once over. “I trained Tiffin Ellerian.”

Varian’s eyebrows shot up, and he sat a little straighter. “You were Tiffin’s mentor?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“I haven’t met you before.”

She smirked, raising the glass to her lips. “No, she stopped training with me when she moved to Stormwind Keep. I gathered she had found someone else to practice with.”

Varian wasn’t sure how to respond, but Laurena saved him from an inadvertent faux pas. “Your majesty, Grayson and I have an important meeting we must attend at the Mage Tower. We would leave you in Ms de Beau’s company, if you are agreeable?”

He nodded, standing as they did. “Of course. Thank you very much.”

Laurena smiled at him, and he knew she had heard the sincerity in his voice. “You’re very welcome.”

Grayson bowed to him and followed her out.

They sat in silence for a moment, until Michelle said, “Tiffin’s probably got a hell of a lecture waiting for you up there.”

Varian was startled by her lack of decorum, but upon remembering how Tiffin had talked 99% of her life, it made sense. Paladins seemed to run in two streams: blunt and mildly rude, or polished and polite to a fault. “She always enjoyed calling people out.”

“Aye, that she did. Praised them just as often, though. The things I heard about you.” Michelle shook her head and laughed, loud and full-bellied. “She was smitten.”

A smile began to creep its way across Varian’s face. “She used to lecture the caretakers of the training grounds whenever she managed to demolish a training dummy.”

“Which was three times a week, and twice on Sundays.”

“But never on Thursdays because she set that day aside for prayer and meditation.”

Michelle smiled fondly. “She was a good kid. Anduin took a lot after her, even if he didn’t know her.”

The mention of Anduin had Varian curling up into a little ball inside, but he kept a steady face. Michelle wasn’t fooled.

“You raised a good kid, your majesty. Be proud of your son. Light knows if he’d been mine I would never have stopped talking about him.”

Varian looked down at his desk. The oak was beginning to wear. He might need to order a new one soon, this one seemed to be reaching the end of its lifespan. “I just hope he knew that.”

Michelle gazed at him impassively over her glass, before setting it down. “I’m pretty sure he did. I didn’t know him, and I don’t know you, but from the tales I heard down in Goldshire, you both did some great things. Besides, he’s _Tiffin’s_ son. Did Tiffin ever doubt that someone cared about her?”

Varian laughed quietly. “No. Not once.”

“Not once,” she repeated. “Because she knew people. She loved people. From what I know, it seems like Anduin did too.”

His chest was beginning to ache, and he felt a headache brimming at his temples. He’d always tried his best to make sure Anduin knew that he was loved, but Varian had never been truly whole after the whole Katrana/Onyxia debacle. He slipped up. He gave into depression. He hurt Anduin in ways that he didn’t know how to fix without messing up again.

He had tried, but did that matter? Results mattered. You didn’t get brownie points for trying. And now Anduin was gone and Varian would never be able to try again.

That was the problem with being a parent. Every time you looked at your child you saw them as a baby giggling at his parents, as a toddler falling over his feet, as a curious child grabbing at your knees, as a teenager trying to understand the world, as a young man growing into himself. Varian couldn’t look at Anduin’s picture without thinking of that tiny little boy who smiled up at him from the cradle of his arms and made him feel like the luckiest man on Azeroth.

“You need to come to terms with it in your own time,” said Michelle, and Varian’s head snapped up. He had almost forgotten she was there. “Let yourself grieve. You’re not going to help anyone by pretending everything’s okay. It’s not. It’s okay not to be okay.”

“I’m comple – ”

“Your majesty, I was Tiffin Ellerian’s mentor. Please let that sink in for a moment.”

He grudgingly relented and leant forward to rest his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay. Take some time to yourself.” Michelle watched him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t build everything up around you while you’re like this. I’ve seen war veterans do it, and then when they break everything crashes down around them and it all goes kablooey. Find your support network, let yourself grieve, and take comfort in something. Are you particularly religious?”

“Not as much as I could be.”

“Well, it works for some people. For others it's people, places, books, training. Toss that sword of yours around for a bit. Just don’t remain static in a world that is flowing around you.”

He allowed her words to sink in, and rubbed his forehead, suddenly very tired. “Thank you, Michelle. I appreciate it.”

She stood, recognising the dismissal. “I’ll be in Stormwind for a while. You need help, my door’s open. I’m not great with a sword anymore, but I’m a damn fine doctor. I’ll do what I can.”

She bowed awkwardly, as if it wasn’t something she’d had a lot of practice doing, and swung out the door.

Varian looked over at the still half-empty bottle of wine, and set it back on the tray with the other drinks. Maybe it was time to see to those reports.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pros of NPCs: technically not OCs  
> Cons of NPCs: you still have to invent everything about them except for names and appearances
> 
> more 12am posting because sleep is for the weak and my blood is now sugar


	8. Old Friends

Ishaia was getting tired. Nelphi could feel the sluggishness in her wing beats and the way she kept her gaze on the ground, as if anticipating a landing. Nelphi sympathised, she really did, but they were nowhere near a safe landing site. The Barrier Hills were not welcoming.

Also, in Nelphi’s experience, ogres didn’t generally appreciate the hard work of gryphons.

“Come on, girl, just a little more. I’ll give you a long rest when we get to Telaar.”

Ishaia let out an indignant squawk and nearly jostled Nelphi off her perch.

“Alright, and some fish. Do gryphons eat fish?”

Nelphi didn’t get thrown off her seat, so she took that as an affirmative.

She decided that she didn’t like Outland very much. The ley lines were unpredictable and fractured, and the air was so rich with intensely primal magic that her casting became erratic. She didn’t know how to manipulate such strong magical fields, and magic was not something that you messed around with. People learnt that the hard way.

The ogres below seemed casually oblivious to the mage flying above them. Nelphi wasn’t certain in her ability to cast a decent invisibility spell, and the Barrier Hills were larger than many people gave them credit for. Her nerves were already cussing her out.

Ishaia crested a peak and suddenly the sprawling plains of Nagrand stretched in front of them, beautiful in their lushness. Nelphi had never been to Outland before, but she had visited Draenor with Jaina at one point, and she hoped the rest of the shattered planet was as beautiful. It probably wasn’t – she’d been to Deadwind Pass often enough to know what magic could do to a place – but what were humans without hope?

She was positively wise tonight.

Ishaia unerringly oriented herself towards Telaar, her great wings carrying them across the distance. The levitating chunks of earth made it a little tricky to navigate, but Ishaia was cunning for a bird-lion-thing, and swept and swerved gracefully.

“You’re much nicer than an elekk,” Nelphi said as they circled around the tallest spire. “Thanks, Ishaia.”

Ishaia squawked and landed with a slide. Nelphi swung herself over the saddle and dropped to the ground, stretching her shoulders and sighing appreciatively. Time to ask some questions.

She stomped back to Ishaia ten minutes later and hauled herself up into the saddle with an irritated huff. “Sorry girl, looks like we’re in for a long night’s flight. We’re heading north.”

Ishaia let out a huff, ruffled her feathers, and took to the skies again.

The clouds seemed to be coming in again, and Nelphi wiped her face from the condensation. She missed Azeroth already, the clouds never came over this quickly nor as densely. Ishaia wasn’t taking it any better. She kept on ducking up and down to try to clear the clouds. Nelphi ended up having to guide her right down to a few metres from ground level, darting in and out of the hills and plains of Nagrand.

Of course, as Nagrand was a valley as much as it was a series of plains, they eventually hit the mountain range between it and Zangarmarsh. The peaks ascended up into the clouds, and Nelphi could already feel the pneumonia setting in.

“I am so sorry,” she said to Ishaia. “I swear I didn’t mean to make you fly through hell on our first day together. Can you ever forgive me?”

Ishaia did not deign to honour that with a response. Nelphi couldn’t really blame her.

As they flew further and further up, Nelphi’s teeth began to chatter, and she drew her robes around her tighter. Northrend had been colder, much colder, and she had been stationed there for as long as Jaina had been, but that was a long time ago now. She didn’t miss it. She had met a few nice adventurers, but most of them had been harried and mildly rude, clearly eager to get on with saving the world from the Scourge. She had tried to be cheerful and hopeful, but both are kind of difficult when you’re freezing your butt off and halfway to Scourge bait.

Jaina had apologised, many years later. Nelphi had waved it off. Being the apprentice to the greatest Archmage in history came with a cost.

“I’m sure the marsh is warmer,” she said, teeth clacking and making her stutter. “It’s a marsh, right? They need high temperatures or something? We’ll just get over these hills, and then we’re home free.”

When she saw Prince Anduin again, she was going to wrangle his bloody neck.

* * *

Wrathion was going to wrangle Anduin’s bloody neck.

He appreciated Anduin. Truly, he did. But there was something incredibly _dense_ about him that made Wrathion want to clunk him around the head with a very big stick to see if it changed anything in that empty mass he called a brain.

“There are better healers across the Portal,” Anduin argued, folding his arms. “And besides, its time we headed over anyway. I don’t know about you, but purple isn’t really that interesting.”

“You need healing _now,”_ Wrathion said.

“I don’t. I’ll be fine.”

Wrathion nearly spat flames. “Did you not notice yourself nearly passing out earlier? Or are you miraculously all better now?”

Anduin’s expression tightened, and Wrathion realised the idiocy of his words. It was too late to take them back now, so he shouldered on, resigning himself to Anduin’s stubbornness. “You are not alright. You are not fine. I don’t care what long-term considerations you are thinking of; you are getting professional healing immediately. Consider it my _revenge,_ if it makes you feel better.”

“But – ”

“ _I will strangle you.”_

The Stormspire was an Ethereal town. Ethereals, not having bodies, didn’t seem to need healers, and it had proven pointless to try and find someone who knew one. Wrathion knew for a fact there was an accomplished Anchorite back at Telredor, and failing that, Shattrath was perhaps a day or two away from there. 

In all honesty, he wasn’t entirely sure why Anduin was so adamant that they not go out of their way to get healing. Surely it made more sense to ensure his continued survival, and therefore be able to enjoy all manner of vacations in the future? But no, Anduin seemed to believe that Wrathion would prefer to continue on, never mind the _Legion poison_ burning through his veins.

“It’s not that bad, I had it under control.”

It appeared he had said that out loud.

“You told me that you couldn’t heal it.”

Anduin shuffled, and Wrathion took that as a win. Seeing no further response, he strode up to the nearest Ethereal, put on his best smarmy smile, and set to work.

* * *

See, the thing was, Wrathion was charming.

He knew it, too, which was even worse, because he didn’t have a moral compass that stopped him from using his charm as a weapon to get what he wanted. He would walk into a room, smirk as all the heads turned to watch him, and within minutes he would have people lining up to answer his questions.

It was all mildly impressive, if you went for that sort of thing.

Anduin didn’t.

It wasn’t that he was ‘disillusioned’ or ‘used to it’. It was difficult to simply get used to Wrathion. The fact was that he had now spent so long watching Wrathion manipulate people that he just accepted it as a part of his life.

He was self aware enough to admit that Wrathion manipulated him, too. He was still doing it. Even after so many years, and so many weeks of travelling together, Anduin was still running into that particular barrier. He just could not bring himself to believe that Wrathion had nothing but Anduin’s best interests at heart.

Wrathion somehow – he wasn’t going to ask – persuaded a visiting Magistrix to create a portal for them to use. She didn’t look terribly happy about this arrangement, but agreed when Wrathion produced a handful of shiny gems out of nowhere.

“I will need a moment,” she said, “but I can teleport you both to Shattrath. Do not interrupt my concentration.”

She shut her eyes and focused, her hands glowing. Anduin had been subject to Jaina’s teleports often enough to know the feeling intimately, but Wrathion was looking particularly green about the gills. The last thing he saw before he felt his body _shift_ was the Magistrix’s eyes snap open and her hand stretch towards him.

There was a split second where he felt himself travelling through space, the strange rush and dropping feeling in his stomach, before his surrounding stabilised around him.

He wished they hadn’t.

“WRATHION!” he screamed, flailing wildly as they began to plummet towards the ground. Wrathion’s eyes were wide as saucers.

There was a blur, and then Wrathion was hovering, shaking his head as Anduin fell further. With a bellow, he swept down in a wide arc, coming to glide underneath Anduin and catch him neatly.

“We have got to stop meeting this way, Prince Wrynn,” said Wrathion, but his voice was shakier than normal.

Anduin rolled onto his back and panted, chest heaving, fingers trembling. His leg hurt, terribly, and he clutched at Wrathion’s horns blindly.

“Arthas’ buggering underpants,” swore a vaguely familiar voice from somewhere below them. Wrathion turned sharply, nearly tossing Anduin off, and he peered over Wrathion’s wing to see a shocked looking woman on a gryphon flying several metres away.

“Prince Anduin?”

He yelped, and Wrathion took off, zooming over the red earth. Anduin vaguely registered their location as the mountains between Zangarmarsh and Hellfire Peninsula.

He glanced back, trying to remember who the woman was. He’d seen her somewhere, he was sure of it, but she had one of those unmemorable faces that could have been anyone from the florist in Stormwind to an Archmage in Dalaran. Brown skin, dark blonde hair, with a long dark blue and black coat with golden embroidery.

Wrathion was faster than the gryphon, but barely. They swept over the mountains, dodging between peaks and ducking to try to evade her. She had given chase; the gryphon was surprisingly agile.

Anduin shut his eyes. Wrathion was heading into the open skies, over the trampled and ruined fortress of Hellfire Citadel. They were exposed as a raw nerve. He glanced back; the woman’s hands were glowing, and he yelled for Wrathion to swerve.

Just in time. A bolt of silver energy zipped past them and hit an unfortunate bird, slowing it mid air.

“Head for the Portal!” Anduin yelled over the rush of the wind, and Wrathion swept into a curve, flying around the rubble that had once been Honour Hold. Anduin did not shriek. He _didn’t._

Once, Anduin had wondered what it would be like to ride on a dragon’s back, feeling the wind in his hair. He had wondered how fast they could go.

Right now, he really, really wished he didn’t know.

The woman was still keeping pace, but Wrathion snapped in his wings and shot forward. They tunnelled through the air like an arrow, Anduin’s staff being flung from his elbow, Wrathion’s wings fluttering even as they tightened in.

The Dark Portal loomed ahead, its energies spiralling and swirling. There were still the remains of the Last Alliance’s forces scattered around. The siege engines and workers moving back and forth, the guards lying around in relaxation; it was calm.

Then a black drake careened through, the sound of screaming floating from its back, and plunged into the Portal’s depths.

* * *

Ishaia let out a shriek as the dragon disappeared through the portal, and Nelphi swore.

“Come on! We can still catch up to them, come on girl!”

They passed through, Nelphi shuddering as she felt reality realign around her. The Dark Portal always had a particular feeling to it, as though the fel energies could touch her as she passed through.

They shot out the other end, Ishaia screeching at the unfamiliar terrain. Nelphi shook her hair out of her face.

Anduin and the Black Prince were nowhere to be seen.

She let out a scream of frustration, and Ishaia drooped visibly, slowly dropping to the ground. Nelphi fell off in a tumble, and buried her face in the earth with a yell.

Jaina was going to _destroy_ her _._

* * *

Far above Nelphi, hiding above the stony pillars of the Dark Portal, Wrathion and Anduin pressed themselves to the stone and panted. Wrathion was really quite sure he was hyperventilating.

He peeked his head over the edge, ducking back when he saw the woman roll onto her back and groan. Anduin had a hand over his mouth, eyes alight with what Wrathion thought might be laughter; he bit his lip to contain a giggle.

They waited in silence, struggling not to dissolve into hysterical laughter as the adrenalin kept rushing through them, until Anduin looked down and the woman was gone.

“Forget my father,” Anduin said, collapsing backwards and falling onto Wrathion’s stomach, “I think you just aged _me_ ten years in twenty minutes.”

Wrathion let out an _oof_ and groaned. “I can’t feel my arms.”

He sat up and nearly fell, wobbling forward to rest his forehead on Anduin’s. Anduin reached around to bat at him, lazily, almost like a cat, and Wrathion snorted out a huff of laughter.

“I think,” Anduin said slowly, “I don’t hate you anymore.”

Wrathion smiled bitterly. “It would be wiser if you did.”

“Probably.” He sighed. “This isn’t forgiveness.”

“I’m not asking for it. I’m not sorry.”

“I know.”

Wrathion hesitated, then reached out to take Anduin’s hand. He allowed it.

They sat there and caught their breath, until Anduin nudged him and sat up.

“What time is it?” he asked, looking up at the sky. It was late, very late, and Wrathion felt comforted by the sight of familiar stars again.

“Near midnight,” he said. “I hadn’t really noticed.”

He hadn’t exactly been looking at the sky, after all.

Anduin stood, and offered Wrathion a hand. “I know there’s a worgen village just behind here. I’m sure they won’t mind us barging in this late.”

They climbed down from the Portal, although perhaps ‘fell down’ would have been more accurate. Wrathion stubbed his toe continuously, and Anduin was having trouble with his bad leg, and overall it was not a graceful exit.

The trek to Surwich was gruelling. Wrathion’s entire body ached from the fading rush of adrenalin, and Anduin was stumbling more and more as they walked. They were lucky, Wrathion thought, that the Blasted Lands were mostly levelled. Had they been as swampy as he knew they once were, there would have been no chance of success.

The song of Azeroth hummed distantly in his mind, the earth revelling to find that its scion had returned. The soil samples from Zangarmarsh in his pocket were a discordant clang, a jarring note out of place, but curious nonetheless; they seemed to be reaching out to Wrathion, asking him to take them home.

With half a mind on the distractions of the earth, he didn’t notice Anduin fall until it was too late.

Anduin let out a string of curses that a prince should absolutely not be saying, and his leg buckled, taking him and Wrathion down into a tangle of limbs on the red dirt. Wrathion yelped and extracted himself. Anduin didn’t have as much luck, instead closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. He looked to be in intense pain.

“I knew it couldn’t wait,” Wrathion said, cursing himself for his stupidity. “I told you!”

“Yes, yes, ‘I told you so’, can we just get to the part where we get to safety?” Anduin asked weakly, a watery grin teasing his lips. “As much as I love barren wastelands…”

Wrathion shook his head and slung Anduin’s arm over his shoulder, pulling him up with a gentleness that belied his scowl. “When did you get so tall?” he grumbled, adjusting them so that he could walk while supporting Anduin’s weight. “Beanpole.”

“At least I’m not Dad,” he teased. “Covered in armour. Seven feet of muscle.”

Wrathion pinched his lips and wrinkled his nose. “Your father would never be so silly as to ignore an injury.”

Anduin fell silent, and Wrathion took that as his cue to stop talking. He could sense hints of forest on the horizon; even this far from Gilneas, it seemed the worgen still carried their environment with them.

They kept walking, one foot in front of the other, until they were stumbling into the quiet, sleepy town. Wrathion had always enjoyed being around Gilneans, due to their affinity for the earth, and Surwich was no exception. The buildings were dark wood, the soil beneath his boots soft and damp, and although it was dark and foggy, he could see faint fairy lights lingering in the woods beyond the village.

Wrathion sat Anduin down on a crate and knocked on the door to the inn. The lamp was lit.

The sound of shuffling came from inside, and the innkeeper opened the door. She looked awake, if tired, and narrowed her eyes at him. “How can I help you?”

“My friend and I find ourselves in need of a room tonight,” he said smoothly, smiling. “I don’t suppose you would have space in your fine inn?”

She seemed mollified, and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

He helped Anduin up and they shuffled in awkwardly, Anduin heading straight for the nearest chair and dropping into it with a little sigh.

“I’m Donna,” said the innkeeper. “I only have one room free – the other is occupied. Will that suffice?”

“We will be fine,” Wrathion assured her, fishing some coins from his pocket. They spent a cheerful five minutes haggling, after which she seemed much friendlier and even offered to bring them up some soup.

Gilneans were strange.

They made it up the stairs safely, but just as Wrathion was opening the door, Anduin’s foot caught on a loose floorboard. He fell into Wrathion, who tried to catch him but ended up falling backwards through the now open door and onto the floor. The crash was embarrassingly loud.

Wrathion sighed and pushed himself up. The door to the other room was open, and it framed a tall woman with curly black hair, who, as Wrathion blinked the daze out of his eyes, he saw had a red rose poked behind one ear.

“I always knew something was up with you two,” she said, and Wrathion frowned.

Anduin groaned, rolling away. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but…”

There was a brief moment where Wrathion sat there, confused and suspicious, before the woman laughed and strode forward, picking up Anduin with ease and slinging him over her shoulder. “Long time, no see, Sparkles.”

“I missed you, too,” Anduin said, muffled from where he was talking to the back of her dress. “Wrathion, allow me to introduce you to the indomitable Lorna Crowley. Lorna, this is the Black Prince, Wrathion. Please don’t kill each other until I’m asleep.”

Lorna offered Wrathion a hand, and he accepted it. She heaved him up without a thought, strolling forward to lay Anduin out on the bed; she was gentler than Wrathion had expected.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said conversationally, spinning a chair over to straddle it lazily.

“I’ve had that said to me several times,” Wrathion said, a bit snippily. “And yet somehow I’m still here.”

Lorna laughed, eyes darting to Anduin. “You look like you’re on the way there.”

“I feel it, too.” Anduin let out a huff of air that might have been a laugh. He buried his face in the closest pillow. “Please make it stop.”

“I wish I could,” Lorna said, “but you know that’s never been my specialty.”

She leaned over, brushing her fingers along Anduin’s knee, and he let out a truly glorious string of curses. Wrathion sat up sharply.

“It’s gotten worse,” he stated.

It seemed that pain brought out the sarcasm in Anduin, as he sent Wrathion a deadpan look and said, “No, I enjoy it when – ”

He broke off.

Wrathion looked at Lorna, and Lorna looked at Wrathion, and they nodded in unison and set to work.

Lorna’s job was simple. She patted Anduin on the forehead then offered him a jar of something from one of her pockets. Anduin gave it a resigned look, then nodded. One sniff and he was out like a light.

Wrathion’s, not so much. He knew about poisons: he needed to figure out how this one worked, and how it was blocking Anduin’s connection to the Light.

He worked for an indeterminable amount of time. Lorna was a silent presence at his side, and she reminded him of Right, somewhat. He would have appreciated his bodyguards being there; Left in particular had a way with poisons and their effects on the body.

All he could do was remember what they and Fahrad had taught him. It _was_ a poison, this fel energy; Wrathion was familiar with its effects on the earth. It corrupted and spread through liquids, which explained why it followed Anduin’s veins, and why his knee was acting up. The fluid in his joints must have been corrupted too.

He was loath to use blood magic. It was invasive, and Anduin’s life wasn’t in danger. His leg, yes. Lorna remarked quietly that if this didn’t work, then there was a chance that the leg would have to be amputated.

“He avoided that ten years ago,” Wrathion murmured. “I’m not sure I want to be responsible for putting him through it again.”

He couldn’t have described the exact process he went through to condense the poison. It was instinctive, and it was unplanned. His connection to the energy was tenuous at best, non-existent where it was less dense, and it took all of his focus to move it around to that it was centralised at Anduin’s lower shin. He couldn’t remove it – there was no way to do so without true healing magic – but he could package it away so that it did less damage to his leg as a whole.

Anduin, thankfully, remained unconscious throughout.

Eventually Wrathion sat back. He was no healer. He wasn’t even a proper druid. But he had done what he could, and it would have to do for now.

“Are you heading back to Stormwind?” Lorna asked.

“No,” Wrathion said. “But we may have to.”

“Where are you going?”

“On a little holiday.” He smiled, a tiny thing. “We’re on our way to Stranglethorn’s beaches. It… would be useful to have another pair of eyes, in case of any problems.”

Lorna looked over to Anduin. He was silent, his breath light. Wrathion thought he saw relief somewhere behind her expression. “It would be rude not to help where I can.”

“Absolutely.”

She stood, coming over to sit on the bed next to him. “Alright. And if you ever travel up north, say hello to Tess for me.”

Tess Greymane. Wrathion could remember Anduin saying that he and Tess were friends, years ago. Wrathion had actually met Tess once, at a conference of druids four years ago; they were talking about Old God corruption and he had been a guest of honour. Tess had been there, too, talking about Lordaeron and its geography.

Wrathion always enjoyed talking about ecology. It had been enjoyable to talk about it with someone else who shared his interest.

He recalled her mentioning Lorna; he recognised the name because Anduin had mentioned her as well. It had been brief, throwaway. The only reason he knew who Lorna was to her was because of Tess’ tone.

(She sounded like him when he spoke of Anduin, years prior.)

“We will.”

Lorna nodded, and stood up. She patted Anduin on the shoulder and bid Wrathion goodnight, before disappearing out of the room and gently closing the door.

He let out a long sigh, rolling his shoulders, stretching the muscles down his back. Anduin was sprawled over the closest half of the lone bed, so he shucked off his boots and collapsed on the other side. The pillow was soft, and inviting.

He didn’t notice his eyes shut.

* * *

“Stupid, buggering, Light-damned, diseased _bagel!”_

The sound of cursing filled the room. Luckily, apart from Nelphi, it was completely empty. If Jennea and her partner had been home, Nelphi was absolutely positive that she would have been thrown out, but they weren’t. She could swear her head off and no one would care.

So she did.

She had gone to see the Stormwind flight master as soon as she ported herself and Ishaia there. Dungar had shrugged. Apparently short of sending Ishaia through a portal, he couldn’t return her to Shattrath.

Because Nelphi was a kind and generous soul, she had made sure that Ishaia was stabled and well looked after, and resolved to keep her. She was a good gryphon. It would be a tragedy to let Dungar keep her. Her problem now was that she was somehow supposed to tell Jaina that not only had she found Prince Anduin, but she had summarily lost him. Wasn’t that going to be fun?

She let out a final “Andromath’s flaming garters!” and flopped onto the floor. It was cold and flat. It wasn’t judging her for her complete inability to do anything resembling her job. Light bless this floor.

She had teleported with Ishaia back to Stormwind at some wee hour of the morning. Jennea had not been impressed to wander into work in the morning to find Nelphi and Ishaia sprawled across the floor, fast asleep. But then again, Jennea was rarely impressed by anything, so who cared?

Although, Nelphi did have to give her sister credit. Nelphi didn’t have a house in Stormwind; her home was Dalaran, and in sympathy (and mild irritation) Jennea had sent her back to the house she shared with her partner.

Nelphi had never met Wyn but she suspected that they must be very open minded, to survive sharing a house with Jennea for so long.

Speak of the devil. A creak rang through the house as someone opened the door.

“You need to put some oil on those hinges,” she called out.

There came a dry laugh, and the swish of robes. Nelphi kept her eyes closed.

“Have you been there all day?” Jennea asked. She smelled of arcana and mana motes.

Nelphi groaned, and Jennea laughed again. It sounded like she was puttering around in the kitchen, probably cooking. She was weird like that. Nelphi didn’t understand why she’d cook instead of just conjure something.

“I lost him,” she said to the wooden boards. “He literally fell from the sky in front of me and I sodding lost him.”

Jennea made a non-committal noise of affirmation.

“How do I tell Jaina? Can you tell her? I don’t want to.”

“I’m not telling the Archmage of the Kirin Tor that her former apprentice is rubbish at her job.”

Nelphi rolled over and glared up at her faintly smiling sister. “I am not rubbish.”

“Then stop acting like it,” she said mildly. “Want a sandwich?”

It should have been impossible to eat a sandwich angrily, but somehow Nelphi managed it. Jennea sat down on the couch, supremely uncaring, and munched on a carrot. It snapped with a harsh crack.

Jennea was halfway through her bag of carrots by the time Nelphi dragged herself up to sit next to her. She didn’t look over. Nelphi wasn’t sure to be grateful or insulted.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“If you continue to act like a child, I’ll treat you like one,” Jennea said serenely. “Now what are you going to do?”

Nelphi drew her knees up to her chest and sighed. “Keep looking, I guess. There’s not much else I can do – hopefully they’re heading towards Stormwind. I can’t go back to Jaina like this.”

They sat in silence.

The two sisters made an odd tableau. Jennea had darker skin and hair, and sat straight. Her robes were well kept and smelled of hyacinth. Nelphi, on the other hand, had curled up into a ball down the other end of the couch. Her jacket was dusty and stained, and her boots needed mending. They were missing several buckles – held together with string.

Nelphi rubbed her eyes. “Jen?”

“Yes?”

“D’you think he’s alright?”

“Who?” Jennea sounded confused.

“The kid. Prince Anduin.”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

“He didn’t… _look_ fine. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just imagining things. He was white as a sheet.”

Jennea hesitated. “He did get thrown off the side of a planet, from what I hear.”

“Yes, but – ” Nelphi huffed, and gave up. “Never mind. I’ll keep looking.”

She stood and meandered towards the guest room, collapsing onto the bed and shoving the pillow over her head. There were some problems that she could solve, and some that needed a good night’s sleep; which this was, she would find out in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE!!!
> 
> I played through the entire worgen questline again just to hang out with Lorna, so I hope you like her because I sure do


	9. Doubts

When one really thought about it, time was quite meaningless.

In the end it was all relative. An hour could be as long as a second, and a second could last decades. But time was not a concept that he thought about overly much. He had, once, tried to understand its complexities and nuances. He had given up. It was better to leave that to the Timewalkers.

He had no understanding of time without a frame of reference. His thoughts were darkened. He felt as though he were in a state of dreaming, watching from up on high.

Time slowed and time sped.

A little voice in the back of his mind whispered to him, in words he could only half understand.

He listened.

“Anduin? Come on, I can’t hold onto you forever, I’m not that powerful. Open your eyes.”

His eyes were open, weren’t they? He was watching. Watching the darkness, the faint wisps of light that sometimes fled through his vision. There were two red sparks he saw sometimes that he couldn’t recognise, couldn’t focus on, couldn’t follow. Two burning stars in a sea of midnight sky.

He sighed. Breath exhaled lightly.

Time was a fickle thing.

All he could do was wait to see what it would bring. What the stars would bring.

“I cannot leave you behind, Anduin Wrynn. Do not… me… lose you…”

The little voice faded away alongside the stars.

Time lengthened, and wrapped around him like a warm embrace. He lost himself in it. There was no way of knowing how long he remained there, shattered and hollow.

It felt like ten years of pain, trapped in one night.

* * *

Anduin woke slowly, blinking his eyes blearily and trying to adjust to the light. His head was fuzzy and his whole body ached. His leg felt weird.

“Sparkles?”

He blinked again and turned his head. It took more effort that he expected – that wasn’t right. He didn’t remember being this tired.

Lorna was sitting in a chair next to the bed. She looked tired and wan, and her rose was drooping. He wasn’t sure why. He tried to reach over and pat her on the knee, but his arm fell short.

“Hey, hey, calm down there, tiger.” She scooted closer to him and felt his forehead. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Tired,” he said croakily. “Leg hurts.”

“I know.” She reached down and picked up a cup from the floor, and poured in a small amount of water from the jug on the low stand next to the bed. “Here, drink this.”

He did, then tried to sit up, but was blocked by something on his left. He turned his head to see Wrathion curled up next to him, arms wrapped around Anduin’s left arm like it was a toy that Wrathion had to protect. It reminded Anduin of Pandaria; sometimes Wrathion would curl up next to him in his dragon form when Anduin had particularly bad pain attacks, a little furnace of heat that comforted Anduin enough to sleep.

Lorna chuckled wearily. “He’s been hovering over you like a concerned fly. Wouldn’t leave you alone for thirty seconds. He’s not what I expected.”

Anduin’s eyes crinkled and he smiled. “No, I suppose not.”

Suddenly he frowned.

“How long have I been asleep?”

Lorna let out a slow huff of air, her brow creased in thought. “Well, that depends. You’ve been quite out of it. I think it would be three days unconscious and another ten hours asleep?”

“What?!”

He stared at her, eyes wide, trying to recall something to dispute her, but his brain was foggy and he couldn’t remember much.

Lorna pushed his chest gently, nudging him back into a lying position. “I… it’s hard to explain.”

“What happened?” Panic started rising in his chest. “Lorna, what happened?”

Her eyes were wide, and he could see his face in the reflection on her irises. “You were very ill, Anduin. We… we didn’t have any other recourse, it hit so suddenly. We tried to isolate the poison, but it kept breaking free. Wrathion, he thinks it was because you’re a priest; the Light acted as a conduit, something that the fel energy could grapple onto and use to move through you. It was so bad, there was a point where you were having convulsions. I tried to find someone to purge it, to cure it, to do _something,_ but the medic here doesn’t have magical talents like you. They said – I did everything, Wrathion tried everything he knew, you have to understand.”

She was shaking. Anduin had never seen Lorna so intensely worried; she was always laughing, or distracted, or fighting.

“Lorna…”

She burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Anduin! Light, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

His heart sunk, a cold feeling pooling in his stomach. With trembling hands he peeled the blanket back.

Literally.

His eyes followed his right leg down to the knee, and then –

Lorna was still apologising, a heady rush of words that barely penetrated the haze enveloping him. He felt numb, removed from the situation, like there was a glass screen between him and Lorna.

He thought he had left this behind.

This all encompassing fear.

The numb, dead feeling.

The _pain._

There was a shift, movement at his side, and he watched idly as Wrathion sat up.

There was speaking. Lorna was calming down. Wrathion leant over him, gently shaking him, and he realised in the back of his mind that he was going into shock. That was nice.

Wrathion was speaking to him.

“Breathe with me. Come on, Anduin. Breathe.”

He focused, feeling his chest rise and fall. It was harder than expected.

“That’s it. Keep going.”

Lorna disappeared, and Wrathion kept Anduin’s gaze fixed on his own.

“Better.” Wrathion sat back, his eyes troubled. “I don’t suppose you remember any of the past few days, do you?”

It wasn’t a question. Anduin shook his head.

“It’s probably for the best.” Wrathion slid off the bed and fussed around for a moment, twining his hands together. Anduin watched him blankly. “Miss Crowley has gone downstairs to get some soup.”

He meandered over to the windows to draw the curtains, and judging by the sunlight Anduin guessed it was mid-morning, nearing noon.

His mind was a fog, stuffed with cotton wool and hazy from shock. He felt weak and dizzy. No nausea – that at least was something in his favour. There was no way to tell what would happen if he tried to stand. He felt awful simply sitting up.

His body took control, and he felt himself droop back into the cushions, staring at the ceiling.

He was a priest, a healer. And yet by neglecting his own injury he had made it infinitely worse. He had thought himself mature enough not to do that, no longer so impulsive and self-destructive to think that he was invincible. Making it out alive from the Divine Bell incident, he had thought, would teach him the value of human life and how dearly fragile it was.

But he had forgotten, wrapped up in the whirlwind that was Wrathion, and all the events thereafter. There were too many things happening in too short a timespan, and Garrosh had only driven him to his most idealistic point.

Garrosh hadn’t broken him.

He had broken himself, in celebrating that.

“Anduin…”

He opened his eyes, not realising that he had closed them in the first place, and looked over to where Wrathion had perched on the side of the bed. He was fiddling, nervous, but Anduin was too tired and too miserable to be able to extend further empathy. Either Wrathion would tell him his thoughts, or he wouldn’t.

“Is this my fault too?”

He felt his heart stop.

Once upon a time, he had blamed Wrathion for a lot of things. For destroying his hopes, for taking his trust from him, for all the events that had lead up to and past Draenor. That was ten years ago, now. In those ten years – ten long years of little to no contact, ten years of mistrust, ten years of burning melancholy – Anduin had made peace with what had happened. He accepted it. It was a part of him and his history as much as anything else, and it had shaped him as a person.

He hadn’t made peace with Wrathion, though. He hadn’t forgiven and he hadn’t forgotten. He couldn’t forget Wrathion if he tried, and there were some things that you couldn’t forgive. That you didn’t have to forgive. That would be just as wrong to forgive as it had been to commit.

He was only human.

And Wrathion wasn’t.

But that little question, that ‘too’ tacked on the end, struck a chord. Something deep in him, some part of him, had never believed that Wrathion could possibly see the trial and ensuing events as his fault. His doing, his plan, his actions, yes. But not his fault. Because that would imply that there was something wrong with it, that Wrathion had done something to be _considered_ a fault; and that was not the Wrathion Anduin knew.

Wrathion was enigmatic. Wrathion was egocentric. Wrathion was evangelistic.

But Wrathion was not the sum of his parts. He was more than the person Anduin had built up in his mind.

Wrathion was energetic. Wrathion was eccentric. Wrathion was empathetic.

“No.”

Such a little thing. Such a small question, with a miniscule response. Never mind that the issue was bigger, the question more than the obvious, the feelings and thoughts more than what they were sharing. In the end, it was that simple.

It was not Wrathion’s fault.

He was guilty, certainly. His guilt far outweighed Anduin’s in several respects.

Yet they had both known it would come to this.

He stretched out a hand, palm to Wrathion, and the dragon gently pressed his own palm to Anduin’s.

His hand was warm. Wrathion was fuelled by an inner fire, a furnace that never went out. Anduin’s fingers curled, ever so slightly, resting lightly atop Wrathion’s. His hand was larger, but his fingers slimmer. Long and lanky to Wrathion’s short and stocky.

Never had there been two opposites with a stronger attraction.

“Was it mine?”

It was a question that had long weighed on Anduin’s mind. It was more philosophical than emotional, a persisting curiousity that had him lying awake at night, doubting. It took two to argue, two to fight; one to break and another to act. Wrathion influenced him, and he influenced Wrathion.

“No.”

But it was not his fault. It was not his burden to bear, and he could continue without it. Oh, he could carry it, and if it had offered him closure then he doubtless would have, but it was out of his hands. This weight was carried by both of them.

Once, it had been doubled.

Now it was shared.

Maybe they had needed this time, time to grow apart and into themselves outside of their spheres of influence. Wrathion had grown into someone Anduin was only starting to recognise, and Anduin…

Anduin had lost his leg and gained a friend.

He smiled. Dampness dried against his cheeks. Whatever fear he had, whatever agony he felt stirring, it was nothing compared to the sudden rush of fondness and the feeling of toppling off a precipice of _presque vu_ and into a rushing river of enlightenment.

It seemed like a worthwhile exchange.

* * *

The first time Anduin sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, he changed his mind the moment he saw the difference in the length of his legs, and went back to bed.

The second time he tried, he got as far as handling the prosthetic Lorna had obtained for him. He then realised he would have to put it on, and went back to bed.

The third time, Lorna handed him a pair of crutches. He groaned immediately and almost went back to bed, but she wheedled him into at least standing. It hurt. A lot.

“Well, you’re out of bed,” Lorna said cheerfully. “That’s better than yesterday.”

Anduin threw his crutch at her.

The fourth time he managed to stand, Wrathion bodily picked him up and carried him downstairs.

“Let me down!” Anduin sputtered, flushing deeply as Lorna followed them down, laughing.

Wrathion shook his head. He wasn’t wearing his turban, for once, and his curly hair puffed up with the movement. “No. You need to get out of that room before I set it on fire.”

A small part of Anduin doubted that would be the case. The larger, rational part of him acknowledged that Wrathion had nearly burned down Tong’s tavern. It was bound to happen again sooner or later.

They stashed themselves away in a corner. Anduin tried to eat some soup, but put his bowl down after finishing barely a quarter. Lorna picked at her steak idly, staring at the opposite wall as if it contained the secrets of the universe. Wrathion looked exhausted and dropped his head to his arms after he was done.

The fifth time was when he tried to get up from his chair. With Wrathion tucked under his arm on one side and Lorna hovering anxiously on the other, he made it nearly five steps before he couldn’t handle the alien feeling anymore and made grabby hands for his crutches.

The sixth time was slightly more successful. He staggered a few times, but he made it three circuits around the second floor before Wrathion worried him back into a chair.

“You don’t have to stay,” he said at one point. He felt young and useless, trapped and trapper. If he was the reason why Wrathion forwent his turban more and more, why he had dark bags under his eyes, why his gaze constantly darted around to look for obstacles, then he didn’t want any part in it. He had already hurt himself. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else on top of that.

“You’re still ill,” Wrathion said, “because there is no other rationale for such a deluded statement.”

The doctor, a kindly old man named Jeremiah, visited them occasionally to check up on Anduin. He was slow, but methodical, and his hands were quick and clever.

He called Anduin brave. Anduin called himself reckless.

One afternoon, Lorna insisted on them going down to the wharf and sitting on the edge. Anduin had his prosthetic in his lap, and he was examining it with a mixture of curiousity and morbid horror. Lorna had her feet in the water, boots lying abandoned behind her and socks draped over Anduin’s shoulders. Wrathion, it turned out, didn’t know how to swim. Anduin wasn’t surprised. He was a dragon – dragons generally didn’t go into the water.

“I could teach you,” Lorna offered.

Wrathion poked his toe into the water and made a face. “It’s too cold.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Anduin sighed and gazed out towards the horizon. He wondered what was on the other side of that vast ocean, the spread of waves and water. There must be something out there. Azeroth was an entire planet, and they’d already discovered landmasses they hadn’t known existed. Who was to say that Pandaria was an isolated incident?

Wrathion broke him out of his thoughts.

“I want to fly.”

Anduin looked over. They had been in Surwich for almost two weeks, now, and not once had Wrathion transformed.

“Go ahead, buddy,” Lorna said, leaning back.

“In case it has escaped your notice, we are trying to stay out of the radar. It would be rash for me to transform.”

Lorna rolled her eyes and tilted her head back to look at him. She was the most comfortable of the three of them, seemingly at ease and confident in their precarious future. Alliance forces coming down on them like a ten tonne sack of bricks didn’t even faze her. “There’s an entire ocean out there. Stretch your wings. Surwich has seen weirder, I promise you that.”

She laughed, suddenly, a loud thing that came straight from her belly. “I mean, come on. We’re Gilnean. Half our population shapeshifts on a regular basis.”

Lorna had a point.

Wrathion gingerly looked around, then eyed her narrowly. “If anything happens, it is on your head,” he said, that silky tone returning temporarily, before he was surrounded in a cloud of smoke.

Anduin watched him go, watched his wings beat as he zipped towards that lonely horizon. He smiled as Wrathion did a few loops, clearly showing off, then settled into a lazy back and forth up in the clouds.

His leg twinged, and his good humour fled.

“Hey,” Lorna said quietly, “is there anything you need? Anything at all, I’ll get it. Just say the word.”

He shook his head. For some reason he was finding it difficult to form words, to articulate feelings he was grappling with inside.

The innocent wooden prosthetic leg lay in his lap, staring up at him accusingly. He shut his eyes.

He must have fallen asleep or blacked out, as he opened them again to find his head in Lorna’s lap and his legs resting on the wharf. He tried to sit up, but Lorna patted his face somewhat absentmindedly, and he changed his mind.

He was so tired.

* * *

“You know, I met a lot of veterans while I was in the Gilnean Liberation Front. Lost legs, lost arms; one guy even had his sense of humour shot off.”

“Ha.”

“He didn’t think so. Anyway, there was this one veteran, their name was Melissa. They’d lost an arm and a foot. I asked them, does it hurt? Do you miss them? And they said, yes, of course, but not in the way you think. It’s not that the injury hurts, it’s that the idea of what you’re missing creeps up on you at night and steals your sleep. It’s that you know you’ll never be perfectly whole again. You’ll never be able to do everything the way you used to. And that scares a lot of people.”

“It scares me.”

“I know. Melissa told me that they were lucky. There were veterans from earlier wars than the Gilnean liberation that had lost limbs, who told them how to cope and what it would be like. But they also said that even then, it didn’t feel like enough.”

“Then what?”

“It was hard for them. Their friends didn’t understand, and they did try to help to the best of their ability, but there was only so much they could do before Melissa started to draw away.”

“So what happened? Did Melissa find someone?”

“In a way. They found themself. They said that it wasn’t the injury that had been the problem, it was the uselessness and crippling self-doubt that really broke them down. That’s why they joined the Liberation Front: it gave them a purpose. And, quite frankly, we would’ve accepted anyone at that point. Gilneas needed all the help it could get.”

* * *

Anduin frowned, rolling the idea around in his head. It was the – he could barely think the proper word – injury that was the root of his problems, wasn’t it?

Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t. Lorna at least seemed to think there was more to it.

But he _was_ useless. It was a fact as much as a belief. He could barely walk, he couldn’t find the focus to pray properly, and he was a burden to his friends. Where, in all of that, was he to find some sense of purpose?

Lorna hummed and plucked the rose from behind her ear, slipping it behind Anduin’s.

He turned his head, looking out at the ocean. Some small part of him wondered what it would be like, just to float away with the waves, staring at the sky and the sea. Lonely, he thought. Enlightening, maybe.

He sighed, and watched Wrathion cartwheel through the sky.

Clouds were beginning to roll in, as they inevitably did near the ocean, and Anduin could feel the wind change that heralded a storm.

“Should we go in?” Lorna asked. She didn’t move.

Anduin shrugged. He didn’t really care either way. If they went in, he would be stuck in that bed again and no doubt bore Lorna and Wrathion to death. If they stayed outside, they would get rained on and run the risk of catching a cold.

Honestly, he would rather get pneumonia than impose on his friends like that.

His gut clenched.

That was the same kind of mentality that got him into this exact situation.

“Let’s go in,” he said, pushing himself up on trembling hands. “I don’t – ”

The wind picked up along with the waves, and he was forced to hold up a hand to block a sudden wash of sea spray. Lorna reached around to pull on her boots, and tossed him his crutches.

“You need held putting that on?” she asked, nodding to his prosthetic. He looked down at it. It was a simple thing, just well polished wood and some faint carvings. The end was cushioned, padded to make it less painful, but it still dug into his knee and irritated the skin there. Doctor Jeremiah had recommended he find a professional make him a properly fitted one, as while this was serviceable enough, it could certainly be optimised.

He fumbled with the clasp and, with hands that didn’t really feel like his own, slipped it on.

“Does it hurt?” Lorna asked, one knee propping up her chin and the other still dangling in the water.

“No,” he lied. “It doesn’t.”

Lorna helped him up, and he settled down onto his crutches with a wince. At least there was one thing years of archery had helped him with – his upper body strength was more than enough to cart him around for a while.

They slowly made their way back into the inn, which Anduin was beginning to hate simply by association.

“What about Wrathion,” he asked, looking back just as Innkeeper Donna was shutting the door behind her. “Will he make it back in time?”

Lorna shrugged, and gently helped him up the stairs. “He should. I imagine it can’t be too fun, flying around in a thunderstorm. ‘specially not over the ocean.”

Anduin bit his lip and let her lead him away, but that little voice in the back of his mind was calling out to him.

There was a golden hoop on the bedside table. Anduin picked it up curiously, and thought it was a bangle at first, before realising it was Wrathion’s earring. While Wrathion did dress differently to how he had while they were in Pandaria, the earring alone had stayed.

Anduin was glad for that. It was a silly little thing, an affectation that he had never understood – it was stranger now that Wrathion’s turban now left both ears uncovered. One earring alone, shining and glinting in the light. But then again, Wrathion had never dressed with any particular grace. He had a style and he enjoyed it, and Anduin was content to let it be.

He turned it over in his hands, setting the crutches next to him. His feelings towards Wrathion had become more mixed in what felt like barely an afternoon. Time was a fickle thing.

Lorna sat in the chair across from him and slipped her boots off. Her socks were soaked in sea spray, and he pulled a face at the smell, making her laugh.

“I was thinking we could head north, after you’re able to travel,” she said. “Not that the ‘Swamp of Sorrows’ is a particularly enticing name, but there must be something interesting there or there wouldn’t be towns.”

Anduin smiled, slightly wearily. He had never been around the region, and didn’t know much about the sites to see. Wrathion would no doubt want to visit the swamp to examine the dirt or some other mundane task. Lorna just enjoyed travelling, and probably thought the environment familiar to Gilneas.

Anduin didn’t know what he wanted.

No, that wasn’t quite true.

He wanted to spend time with Wrathion and Lorna and not be hounded by Alliance forces at each step of the way. He wanted to reforge the bonds that had been broken by age and time and events. He wanted peace.

He had always wanted peace, even at his lowest points.

Now was no exception.

“Sure,” he said easily. “Let’s do that.”

Lorna jiggled her leg, and nodded to the door. “I’m gonna go get Bets. She needs a clean.”

Bets was Lorna’s gun. It was short for Elizabeth, he thought, or maybe Bethany. Anduin didn’t ask. Everyone had their quirks.

He hauled himself back, settling into the now familiar cushions. One even had a dent in it from his posture, although it was a bit lumpy. He wasn’t picky. He had no right to be – from what little he knew about his injury, it wasn’t something that happened by itself. There would have been blood.

It didn’t escape him that he was still circling around the word, refusing to acknowledge it, think it, say it. Much in the same way that he found it easy to look at the prosthetic, but hard to look at his leg.

He knew some people were driven by a morbid curiousity to look at their wounds, or other people’s. He had never felt this. Maybe it was a personal trait, maybe it was out of empathy; he didn’t know. But he had never been comfortable at gawking at wounds, even his own.

No matter that there was a difference between gawking and acknowledging. The longer he didn’t have to look at it, the better.

He had, of course – it was impossible to get around these things. But he hadn’t examined it, hadn’t evaluated it properly like the healer he should be. It was weighing on him, like everything else, but he steadfastly refused to do anything about it.

He got up, forgoing the crutches in a fit of vain optimism, and limped over to the window. He sat on the sill, leg dangling, and stared out towards the ocean.

The clouds had gathered, grey and ominous, waiting on the horizon like a cavalry awaiting their signal. The waves roiled. There were tales of sea spirits and deities that caused great waves to envelop the shore, and Anduin had never believed them, but now he thought he might.

Surwich was a quiet, still contrast to the movement out to sea. No one was outside. It almost seemed abandoned entirely.

He pressed his hand to the glass. The nails were long, in need of a clip, and his skin was paler than he’d ever seen it. No matter how large they seemed against Wrathion’s, against the infinite sprawl of the horizon, they seemed small. Insignificant.

He felt small and insignificant. Reminded of his mortality. Robbed of his mobility. Sapped of his vitality. He knew it, and he hated it, but try as he might he couldn’t break the cycle.

He couldn’t see Wrathion.

“You look very dramatic,” said Lorna from somewhere behind him, and he turned to see her perched in the chair again and halfway through her book. Had she been there long? How long had he been sitting here? This lack of awareness of his surroundings was starting to give him a headache. If he couldn’t even keep track of time, how could he be relied on for anything else?

He crushed the self-doubt suddenly and viciously. He was injured. His body was trying its best to heal and he wasn’t making it easier by doubting his every move.

“I don’t feel dramatic,” he said. “I usually try not to be.”

“Yes, that’s more Wrathion’s style, isn’t it?” She turned a page with a little flick of her fingers. “I will admit, he’s different to what I imagined. Less ridiculous.”

She looked at him over the pages. “He cares for you an awful lot.”

“Oh?”

“Couldn’t get him to leave your side. He almost threw a fit when the doctor insisted that the only way to save you was to amputate your leg. He said…”

She hesitated.

“He said a lot of things.”

Anduin wasn’t surprised at that. Wrathion talked, especially when he was nervous, and he had been subject to many rants and monologues during their time together. Anduin knew he sometimes did the same, but in general, he was more reserved.

Wrathion probably didn’t even know what reservation was.

He looked out towards the sea again.

“How long has it been?” he asked, nervously.

“Forty-five minutes or so. Nearly an hour.”

He bit his lip.

Lorna almost got up when he slipped down from the windowsill, but he waved her away. He just needed to lie down for a bit. Anxiety wasn’t helped by staring into the infinite.

He lay down, and listened as rain began to fall in sheets.

He remembered two glimmering lights. A warm amber colour, or maybe red. He remembered stars, and a night sky, and the sound of a smooth voice. His mind constructed an image of the Dark Portal, but… that wasn’t right. The stars weren’t scarlet. Wrathion had been gentle, not worried and talking rapidly.

It had been Wrathion, he knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew it had been him.

If only he could remember the words.

He cast his gaze to Lorna. She was absorbed in her book, and he felt behind his ear for the little red rose. What was she doing in Surwich? Had he even asked? He felt guilty, but then realised that she hadn’t bothered volunteering the information. It wasn’t as though he had explained why he was here, either.

And there they were. Two friends, keeping secrets. That was always how it started with him.

But, he thought, bringing to mind glittering eyes and a golden earring, that wasn’t always how it ended.

They’d be fine.

 _He_ would be fine.

He reached out and picked up the lonely earring, slipping it around his wrist. It fit well, and he smiled; maybe Wrathion had indeed repurposed an old bracelet.

He fell asleep to the sound of rain on shutters and the faint weight of gold around his wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all knew this was going to happen don't give me that look.
> 
> I hereby dedicate this chapter to Yoshi because a) as far as Things I Have Written, this is not that sad, and b) he is plotting something and I know I won't be able to think coherently afterwards so I am going to get in as much revenge as possible before that happens. (FYI if you haven't read Dov Ah Kiin yet you should it is great. Anduin doesn't eat enough vegetables, but other than that it is perfect.)


	10. Mistakes

Everything was cold, and wet, and murky green. There was water lapping at Wrathion’s scales, and when he tried to shift his tail, he found it was buried under mud.

He stretched his wings.

His eyelids opened slowly, crusted with salt, and his vision slowly adjusted. He was in a pool of water. There was mud and swamp beneath his feet. He was cold.

Those were the facts.

He stood, slowly and with care, because for some reason his muscles ached and his wings felt battered and he was just generally very uncomfortable. The murky green took shape, and he looked around, taking in the bog and trees and shrubs. And the mud. There was a lot of mud.

The Swamp of Sorrows. That was the name for it.

He turned and shifted, settling into his human guise. Well, it wasn’t exactly human – Left had told him at one point that it was halfway between an elf and a human. A half-elf. Wrathion had simply shrugged and said that it suited his purposes as much as any other.

Fahrad had told him it was because he wasn’t practiced enough at shifting, but back then he had still been unable to keep scaly patches from appearing, or from hiding his horns. Now, he was much more practiced, but the faintly pointed ears remained. There was probably a long and lengthy explanation for it, but because Wrathion was not exactly on good terms with any other dragon, there was no one to explain it to him. He wasn’t particularly interested anyway.

Wrathion did not know a lot about dragons.

There was an irony there.

He examined the swamp. There was a clear indent in the bushes where he had been lying, but other than that, it was impossible to track his path.

He rubbed his nose, and the smell of salt burst through his senses.

Ah, yes. There it was. He had been beached.

The reeds whispered as he made his way towards where he knew the shoreline was. Now that he had ascertained his surroundings, and contextualised his various aches and pains, he remembered what had brought him here in the first place.

That was the last time _he_ was flying above the ocean.

Although, he thought dryly, it had been fairly obvious that it was about to rain. He should probably have considered that before throwing himself into the middle of the storm.

His side ached.

The air was moist and humid, very different from the Blasted Lands, but upon investigating the soil, Wrathion could sense similarities between it and Surwich. The Gilneans had done a good job. Not as well as he could have, obviously, but for mortals it wasn’t too bad.

He crumbled the dirt through his fingers and kept walking. The only sounds were the buzzing of insects and the faint sounds of water splashing. In the distance, he could hear waves lapping against the shore, and as he brushed aside a final bush, he felt sand beneath his feet.

There was a large swath cut in the sand, and Wrathion saw several glittering scales scattered across the sand. Murloc huts lined the shore, but the murlocs were mysteriously absent. He wasn’t surprised. Having a drake crash into your village would scare most people away.

The sea was still choppy, and the waves vicious, but the sky was clear and Wrathion knew that if he tried to fly, the weather would not stop him.

So, naturally, he did.

It didn’t work.

The ache along his side turned out to be a pulled muscle, and his wings flatly refused to carry him without screaming in protest. He dropped back to the sand and curled up, flame spurting from his mouth every so often as his frustration grew. Even his talons felt pained. They didn’t even have nerve endings, that made no sense.

He was tired. So he rolled over, and went to sleep again.

* * *

Anduin woke to sunshine and the pleasant sound of Lorna stomping back and forth across the room. She was pacing. Why was Lorna pacing and could he please go back to sleep?

“He’s still not back,” she said abruptly, spinning on her heel to face him. Her boots clacked as they landed on the wooden floor. “It has been nearly fifteen hours and he’s still not back.”

She stared out the window for half a moment, then scowled, and resumed her pacing. Her hands were linked behind her back, fingers drawing patterns in the air. Anduin recognised a nervous tic when he saw one.

He watched her in a burry daze, because although he had woken naturally, it was still a little hard to leap into wakefulness without sufficient adrenalin. Not that he wasn’t capable of it – he was naturally an early riser and it usually only took him a few minutes to rejoin the land of the living.

“Honestly.” Lorna sighed and threw herself down onto the bed, feet swinging to land on a nearby chair. “Is this what you’ve been doing? Losing legs and going missing? Because I can assure you, you have _not_ gotten any smarter since I last saw you.”

Anduin sat up and wrapped his arms around his stomach, gazing flitting away from his legs. “Is this about Wrathion?”

“No, I’m talking about Bets. Of course it’s about Wrathion.” She jumped up again and began pacing, but her boots now clacked against the floor in an agitated rhythm. Sometimes she rocked forward and back, a hitch in the beat, as though she were trying to make music out of her irritation. “He is missing, Sparkles. I would have thought you’d be a little more concerned.”

He was missing. Oh. That was a problem.

His mind was still wrapped in cotton wool, and the lure of oblivion was beckoning him back to sleep.

But Lorna Crowley did not give two shits about oblivion, and she tugged him up impatiently and fussed him into the bathroom.

“Clothes,” she said, pushing a bundle at him. “Boot. Prosthetic. Crutches. You have ten minutes.”

She gave his hair a ruffle, then shut the door.

He sighed and tugged on the provided clothes, which seemed to have been recently washed. There was something cathartic about being clean, about not smelling like ‘adventurer’. It was like Pandaria, somehow. Less fun. More emotional.

Wrathion was missing. That was different from Pandaria.

He sat down on the edge of the toilet seat, staring at the prosthetic in his hands. Mechanically, he tugged up his pant leg and fastened it on, the straps and buckles and metal cold against his fingers.

The door outside opened and closed, and he felt the silence descend. The bathroom door was quiet on oiled hinges, even as he leant back on it, eyes trained on the window. The mist around Surwich had been cleared by the rain.

Wrathion was missing.

Anduin gathered his crutches and made his way over to where they had left their bags, back when they had first arrived in Surwich. Not that their bags really counted as such – a satchel and three belt pouches weren’t bags, they were containers that just so happened to be carried around on their person.

Wrathion somehow managed to fit everything into them. Sometimes, Anduin wondered if he hadn’t enspelled the pouches to carry more than they should.

He slung the belts around his waist. Amusingly, the width was slightly too large. Wrathion was stocky, and despite Anduin’s height advantage, it couldn’t make up the difference. His own satchel was awkwardly thrown over his shoulder, and then he made his way downstairs.

Lorna was talking seriously to Donna the innkeeper, and she looked up as he descended.

“Sparkles,” she said, nodding at Donna and wandering over. She took him by the elbow and steered him to a corner, then said in hushed tones, “If Wrathion was caught in the storm, the currents will have washed him to the north-west – there’s a newly formed inlet in the Swamp of Sorrows that often catches fishing vessels lost similarly.”

“I see.” He didn’t.

He watched Lorna for an extra moment. He hadn’t seen her in a long while, and while it was easy to mistake her for any other woman, there were still hints of the Commander of the Gilneas Liberation Front hidden away. The way she moved with clear purpose, the way her eyes darted around the room, the way her tone took on a clipped edge. Gilneas was long since free from the Forsaken invasion, and her job obsolete. But Lorna wasn’t defined by her position. Her position had been defined by her.

He was still a little intimidated by her, to tell the truth. It was fleeting, but she was Lorna Crowley, and it was hard to forget it.

Yet she and Wrathion seemed to get along well enough.

Which did beg the question, “Why are you so concerned about him?”

“Because you’re not.” She rolled her eyes and dropped into a nearby chair, folding her arms. “I have nothing against him. You’re obviously fond of him. Since you’re currently otherwise occupied, it’s up to me.”

He went red, heat rising in his cheeks, and eased himself into the opposite seat. He wasn’t trying to be a bad friend, but, as Lorna said, he was a bit preoccupied. Should he not be? He didn’t _think_ he should, but he couldn’t seem to get his mind to focus on anything. It was still a bit of a haze.

“I’m – ”

“Please don’t apologise, it’s a little irritating.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed and tugged her ear. “Look. We know where Wrathion probably ended up. We know how to get there – one of the local fishermen has offered to lend me his boat – and – ”

And there went Anduin’s focus again. They were searching for Wrathion by boat. Of course.

It made a certain amount of sense. Anduin sure as shit couldn’t walk, couldn’t ride a horse safely yet, and there was no way he would risk getting on a gryphon. Travel by sea was sensible and practical.

Just bloody terrifying.

Since Pandaria, since nearly drowning in Admiral Taylor’s ship, Anduin had somehow successfully avoided travelling by boat. Which was mostly design, because luckily for Anduin he was the Prince of Stormwind, and as such, had access to almost every form of travel available. If he didn’t want to travel by ship, he didn’t.

It also meant that it had allowed his old fear to simmer without dealing with it. It was a rational response to trauma, the medical part of him knew, but that didn’t stop him from thinking it was an overreaction and ridiculous. It wasn’t like he had died or anything.

Okay, he had come very close, and he was being dismissive, but _still._

“Sparkles, I would really appreciate it if you stopped zoning out on me.”

He jerked up, and his leg shrieked in protest at the sudden movement. Lorna was watching him patiently, or as patiently as Lorna ever was, and he groaned and hid his face in his hands.

“Sorry. I’m just – I get a bit nervous on boats.”

“It’s our only option,” she said briskly. “You can stay up on deck as long as you like, though. It’ll make it easier.”

He was never going in the hold of a ship ever again. He nodded.

There was half a minute where neither of them moved, then Lorna pushed a plate towards him and kicked her boots up onto the table. “So. Tell me what you’ve been up to since you ‘died’.”

He picked up a piece of bread, gave her a lightning smile, and started talking.

* * *

 Wrathion woke for the second time to feel something poking his side. He cracked his eyes open into slits, and watched idly as a murloc villager prodded at him with a long spear from a good distance away. It took a good few minutes for the murloc to realise it was being watched, and which point Wrathion snorted, and the murloc fled.

He stood, shaking the sand from his scales, and made his way back into the swamp. The beach was nice, but the murloc would be back soon, and he didn’t fancy getting skewered full of holes just yet.

It was just as humid and hot and wet as it had been before his nap. He followed the trails sprawling across the marsh, heading towards where he could sense a dip in the earth that indicated a lake. He had vague memories of a temple somewhere here, but they weren’t his, so he didn’t trust them. Anything he hadn’t seen with his own senses was not evidence.

After maybe half an hour of wading through swamp and stretching his wings in the vain hope that they would obey him, he spotted it. A large inlet, with a strange building popping out of the centre. Maybe the memories had been right, after all.

He stretched his wings one final time, and then leapt, testing them. He held steady, hovering in the hair with no small amount of effort. He could make it across to the lake to investigate the strange building.

Not his smartest idea, to be fair, but it was either that or confront the fact that he was separated from Anduin with no clear way of returning.

Wrathion didn’t run from his problems. What are you talking about.

The water was a murky shade of green, and as he looked down, he saw things swimming beneath his reflection. A scale fell from his wing. It hit the water with a small splash, and something emerged from the depths just long enough to snap it up and descend again.

He was never going in water ever again.

He alighted on the roof of the building, the mossy stone crumbling beneath his talons, and he shifted forms. His back was suddenly very painful, and idly he wondered why he had thought flying was a good idea. ‘Stay where you are’ was usually the advice given to lost persons, although Wrathion never took advice, so it was only to be expected.

He looked up at the sky. It was light but cloudy, and since he was in the middle of a lake, there was nothing blocking his view. The swamp seemed to stretch on around him, and he puffed out a little jet of flame, scowling at the horizon.

Well. This did seem to be the only notable landmark, so he might as well explore. Anduin would find him. Anduin was clever – surely he would be able to figure out where Wrathion was washed up, and trace the footprints. So to speak.

“Don’t go into the foreign underwater temple, Wrathion,” he said, in a surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) accurate imitation of Anduin’s earnest tones.

And, because if Anduin thought it was a bad idea that meant it was an exceptional one, Wrathion slid down to the stone floor and descended the stairs.

Was this what his job would be like, as the Earthwarder? Exploring and healing, fixing and destroying? He ran a hand along the carvings on the wall. The temple, whatever it was, felt strange, unnatural. Like it was something corrupted. Wrathion knew corruption; he had it programmed into his brain, a manual on ‘How Not To Succumb To The Old Gods’. He also, thanks to Deathwing and the Legion, knew about other types of corruption. Madness. Flame. Fel. The sudden onset of fire and darkness that seared away a land, and the slow taint that sapped life and stole limbs. This temple felt like the latter, but rather than pained, it made Wrathion feel…

Sleepy. He felt sleepy.

It felt like his footsteps were being planned and then projected, rather than a conscious decision. The temple was damp and quiet. The carvings were done by trolls. The temple seemed to be Gurubashi, or something of the like. The memories in his head weren’t helping.

He stopped. One carving depicted what seemed like a blood magic ritual, and he followed its progress curiously. Blood magic had always fascinated him, despite the stigma that many placed on it, and unfortunately knowledge on it was rare. Honestly, he failed to see why he shouldn’t practice it. After all, it had bought Anduin time enough for the doctor to save him, and it had allowed him to amass a vast Blacktalon network that had aided them greatly up to the destruction of the Burning Legion. It was a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps fate had brought him here for a reason, then.

He wandered through the passages, following the story of the carvings. He knew some, bits and pieces, enough to make sense. The ritual was useless to him – it summoned Hakkar, the Soulflayer, which would make this the Temple of Atal’Hakkar. Blood rituals for chaotic evil deities. No, he had had enough of those. Azeroth had had enough of those.

Then he found one interesting carving.

Dragons. Green dragons. It was more recent, and it seemed that the wall had been repurposed to tell a different story.

He pressed his hands to the carving and shut his eyes, feeling the age of the stone thoughtfully. Yes. This one was interesting. This had the potential to change the way he used his magic.

So he set to work.

* * *

 There was sea spray on her face.

Lorna wasn’t a huge fan of sea travel, but it suited their purposes, and the fisherman who had offered them his services was a lovely man. He had told her, very seriously and earnestly, that he was going to come with them, because they were young ‘uns and needed adult supervision. Lorna, a responsible woman in her thirties, had patted him on the head and smiled indulgently.

Anduin was sitting on the floor beneath the mast, his eyes watching the waves as if afraid they would swallow him. Lorna felt a bit bad, seeing him so clearly distressed, but he had assured her multiple times that he was alright. He was lying, but Lorna couldn’t do anything. Anduin needed to find Wrathion.

It wasn’t entirely altruistic of her, she admitted freely. She couldn’t look after Anduin. She didn’t know him well, she couldn’t offer him unconditional support, and she couldn’t give him the time he needed while adjusting to his amputation. Wrathion could. It was in all of their best interests to reunite, and to do so as quickly as possible, lest they pay the consequences.

Besides. Wrathion was flying in a storm, over the ocean. Lorna wasn’t just going to let him suffer through those aches and pains alone.

She leant on the rail. This ship was different from the ones she usually took. The night elves had a distinctive shipbuilding style, one she quite liked; they were quick and quiet. She could still remember being hauled over the side of one after the fall of Gilneas. Tess, it turned out, was very strong when she wanted to be.

She sighed, and tucked her hair behind her ear. Anduin still had Tess’ flower. She intended to let him keep it, just to remind him that they were there for him. He would need support, since he clearly didn’t want to support himself. Literally and figuratively.

Tess would be pleased with the news. She had been incredibly distraught when the reports had come back, and as much as Lorna had coaxed, she had refused to leave her room. Lorna could understand. She had been heartbroken, but she was quick to move through the stages of grief. Tess, sweet beautiful Tess, took each loss hard and personally.

Lorna wouldn’t change that. It was simply part of who Tess was. Taking that empathy to spare her the pain wouldn’t leave Tess as herself.

Her hair whipped in the breeze, and the nice fisherman called out something cheerful from where he was steering the little boat. She looked over with a curious gaze, and the fisherman pointed to the shoreline. She could see the brown soil of Surwich fade to the red earth of the Blasted Lands, and knew they were making good time. Considering the roundabout loop Wrathion would have been swept into, and the time they had lost, they should reach the Swamp of Sorrows before the day was out.

She came to sit next to Anduin. “How are you holding up?”

He looked across at her from where he had his head propped on his knees. His eyes darted around constantly, and he looked more alert than he had since he had stumbled into Surwich’s inn, but it wasn’t a good thing.

“I’m fine.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

He snorted self-deprecatingly and returned to staring at the waves. He seemed to be taking some comfort in the open air up on deck. Lorna shared the same sentiment – she hated being stuck down in the hold, ignorant of what was going on, subject to the idiocy of others. It was not an enjoyable experience for anyone.

“Are you afraid of the ocean?” she asked quietly, so that the nice fisherman couldn’t hear.

He jumped, staring at her.

“It’s not hard to tell.”

“I suppose not,” he laughed, but it was strained. “No, I’m not – well, a little. There are some bad memories associated with it.”

Lorna nodded understandingly.

They sat in silence, watching the clouds roll and occasionally getting up to do as the nice fisherman asked. Sailing, Lorna thought, was quite fun. She might see if the Gilnean Navy needed officers.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure if they even had a navy yet.

She needed to get back into the military scene.

At some point, they passed from the Blasted Lands to the Swamp of Sorrows. The nice fisherman was whistling. Anduin had curled up even tighter, and Lorna threw an arm over his shoulders companionably.

“Tell me what to do,” she said, “and I’ll do it.”

“I’ll be alright once I’m off the ship,” Anduin assured her, and she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“That is _not_ what I asked.”

“Sorry.”

“Would you like me to distract you? We could go talk to the nice fisherman, I’m sure he has a story or two.”

Anduin looked a little green at the thought of getting up, so she tapped his arm and pointed to the ocean. His gaze followed it, and the seasickness subsided – it was an odd trick, but at least it worked.

She watched as the swamp began to take shape, the green of the trees at odds with the red stone behind them. The nice fisherman explained that once the entire area had been like this, and quite frankly, that sounded awful. The Swamp of Sorrows looked _nasty._

“There!” she called, suddenly spotting a long path cut into the sand of the shore. She leapt up and jogged to the edge of the boat, peering over the edge at the beach. There were crushed murloc huts and a few rocks that glinted strangely in the light. Further on, Lorna could see the edge of a river leading into the swamp.

“I’ll take us in there,” the nice fisherman said, and they slowly navigated their way through the murky estuary. Lorna was nearly hanging over the side, eyes watching the water as it parted for them, hair occasionally getting caught in overhanging branches. Anduin managed to stand, his balance shaky on the moving boat, and moved to rest next to her.

“You think he’s here?” he asked.

Lorna pointed her finger. Branches had been broken, here and there, and sometimes the reeds were depressed. “That’s a trail. Whose, I don’t know. We need to start somewhere.”

Anduin nodded hurriedly, and she rubbed his shoulder before reaching for Bets to make sure she was ready.

The nice fisherman brought them into a large lake, surrounding a strange stone plinth. Lorna pointed at it and raised her eyebrows.

“The Sunken Temple,” the fisherman said. “Creepy things go on down there, lass. I wouldn’t risk it.”

She coughed and shrugged the strap of her gun meaningfully.

“Right-o, that’s where we’re going.” He smiled cheerily, and she grinned back. It was nice to be on the same page as someone for once.

Anduin was quiet, lost in thought again, even as Lorna waved a hand in front of her face. He looked up slowly, still half in a daze.

She nodded to the temple roof. “Does this look like something Wrathion would want to look at?”

Anduin stared at it for a moment. A long moment. It was a moment so long that Lorna reconsidered and labelled it a minute.

“Yes,” he decided with a sigh. “It’s exactly the kind of clearly dangerous and possibly fatal place he would enjoy investigating.”

Naturally, the only course of action was to go in themselves. Lorna thanked the nice fisherman, and scrounged through her purse for the required fee – which was substantial, and probably explained why he was so nice. Money made the word go ‘round.

She leapt off the side of the boat and to the steps leading up to the temple entrance. Anduin was hesitant, eyeing the water nervously, but she extended a hand and through some careful manoeuvring, managed to get him onto the stony ground.

“Keep yer eyes open, alright?” the nice fisherman called as he began to sail off. “Weird things happen in this area.”

Lorna waved him off with a roll of her eyes and squared her shoulders.

“We have to find him,” Anduin said suddenly, and she turned. He was leaning heavily on his crutches, but his stance was firmer than she’d seen it yet. His gaze was trained on the temple.

He looked up to her, and a smile twitched her lips as his brow furrowed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason,” she said, starting up the steps. “It’s nice to have you back with us.”

There was a pause, before she heard the click-clack of his crutches and prosthetic. She smiled to herself, and descended into the depths of the Sunken Temple.

She could see footprints in the murk on the floor. Wrathion’s, hopefully. It was hard to tell exactly, because Lorna hadn’t studied his boots. She had been tempted, but figured at least this way she had plausible deniability, just in case.

“What are these?” Anduin asked, limping his way over to the enormous murals on the walls. Lorna followed him, hands linked behind her back.

“Stories, I think,” she said. “The history of the temple.”

Anduin nodded, but he looked dubious. Like there was something about them that rang familiar. She wondered why. What was he seeing that escaped her?

They made their way through twining corridors, following the footprints. The temple was a maze, and they got lost more than once, but Lorna was a damn fine tracker and always managed to get them at least in line with one set of prints. 

Sounds of scuffling could be heard down the corridor, and Lorna whipped her head up from where she was trying to piece together the trail. Anduin, though, had regained a measure of his spirit, and began moving forward quickly. She unslung Bets and trailed after him.

Three turns and one quick backtrack, and they found the source of the commotion. Wrathion was studying one of the wall carvings, eyes trained and focused, their red glow brilliant in the eerie green of the temple. Behind him, several green dragon whelps were shrieking and making noises, but not attacking.

It became obvious why, when one tried. Without looking back, Wrathion pointed a finger, and a large rock broke from one pile of rubble and slammed into the side of the whelp. Lorna winced as the rock and whelp went flying, slamming into another wall and lying still.

“Wrathion,” she said, when it became clear that Anduin wasn’t saying anything. Wrathion looked over, and a surprised grin darted across his features.

“I knew you would find me here,” he said, beckoning them (Anduin) forward. “I thought, there must surely be a significant landmark here, with something of interest, and lo and behold you followed me here. Sometimes my own genius amazes me.”

“You’re full of shit,” she said, but it wasn’t said out of anger. He was clearly teasing them both, trying for some good humour – and by the look on Anduin’s face, it was needed.

The green dragons continued chittering and chattering, and Lorna growled. Something in them recognised the new threat, and they fled, flapping off down another corridor.

Wrathion had moved over to Anduin, who was making noises about the stiffness in Wrathion’s walk and the way he held himself. Wrathion and Lorna exchanged deadpan looks.

“Anduin, I am fine,” Wrathion said with a sigh, catching Anduin’s hovering hand and stopping him from poking him in the side. “They are nothing but bruises and strained muscles. I was very fortunate.”

Anduin surprised them both by relenting, and drawing back.

Wrathion let his hand go, but his gaze darted to the bracelet around Anduin’s wrist. Lorna had wondered where that had come from, but she hadn’t cared enough to ask.

“Why are you wearing my earring as a bracelet?”

Anduin shook it free and held it out. “You left it in the inn,” he said, and looked away and up to the carvings once again. The discussion, what little it had been, was over. “What are those?”

“Nothing important,” Wrathion replied smoothly, slipping the earring on. “Miss Crowley, I’m afraid I will be relying on you to find the exit.”

Lorna hid her face behind a hand and groaned, and Anduin gave her a sympathetic smile. “Of course you are.”

She swivelled on her heel and pressed her hand to the wall, and followed the scent of sea salt and swamp gas.

Behind her, Wrathion was whispering excitedly to Anduin. Her hearing was better than Wrathion estimated, though, and she caught snatches of their conversation. Wrathion was talking about the wall carvings. Something about magic and rituals, and the way the trolls were wasting that potential. Or perhaps it had been that Wrathion could think of other uses – either seemed hubristic enough to be correct.

Wrathion did not seem like the kind of person to limit himself to what was believably possible.

Anduin didn’t speak much. Lorna hadn’t been expecting him too. A comment here and there, a few probing questions, but the conversation was mostly one-sided.

She glanced back just once, to make sure nothing else was following. No one was, but it put the duo’s little dialogue into context.

Anduin was watching the ground, his footsteps, careful where he put his prosthetic and watching his balance. His grip was tight on the crutches, but sometimes it relaxed. This, and Lorna almost laughed when she realised, occurred whenever Wrathion made a particularly outrageous statement.

Wrathion, for his part, was merrily monologuing away. He gestured widely and expansively, despite the small corridor, and the more he talked, the more Anduin seemed to loosen up. Occasionally he glanced across at Anduin. Their gazes never met, and nor did Lorna’s, but Lorna almost thought she saw Wrathion frown halfway through a whispered rant.

Clever. Maybe he was smarter than Lorna had given him credit for.

She glanced up at one of the carvings as they neared the entrance once again. Several trolls surrounded a strange, bird-like reptile, and strands connected them all to each other. The stone was etched carefully, symbols curved around the bottom, and she wondered what it meant.

But, she thought as she checked back one more time, it was probably better that she didn’t know. Wrathion seemed eager to hide it from her, but talked freely to Anduin. Perhaps it was something he didn’t trust her with.

That was fair. She wouldn’t trust him with her secrets, either.

She slipped a hand in her pocket and let her fingers brush the watch hidden there.

“So, where next?” Wrathion asked, louder once they had reached the temple steps once again. “As fascinating as this temple is, I have no intention of remaining in this swamp.”

Anduin’s lip twitched, and Wrathion smirked.

“West?” Lorna suggested. “You could head through Deadwind Pass and Duskwood. Have a little beach holiday in Stranglethorn. You both look like you need it.”

Wrathion sniffed and drew himself up, then winced as it tugged at a sore muscle in his back. This time it was Lorna who smirked. “Yes, well. Perhaps.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Anduin said quietly. “We should do that.”

“Isn’t Duskwood full of Alliance soldiers?”

“Yes, but they _are_ easy to sneak past,” Lorna said with a shrug. “We can get through to Stranglethorn.”

Wrathion thought for a long while, and Lorna half expected him to start pacing, until he sighed and nodded. “Very well.”

Lorna and Anduin shared a satisfied look, then Lorna turned and looked out towards the lake.

“Hold on. How are we getting off this temple?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw you go two months without updating then write the entire chapter in a day


End file.
